


Dungeons and Memegons

by bklynlow77



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, M/M, but like, its a DND FIC, the characters playing dnd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-18 07:42:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15480921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bklynlow77/pseuds/bklynlow77
Summary: Keith's roommate drags him to the nerdiest night of his life





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's a d&d fic. Insp from @ironinkpen's fucking hysterical post on tumblr about what if the whole show was just one long winded campaign, turned into a fic by yours truly because i love dungeons and dragons and voltron a little too much for my health. I'm a dm who loved the monsters and mana episode.  
> ALSO I know this is kind of a boring chapter bc it's the set up chapter, but that's how I feel about the beginning of any good campaign c:  
> ALSO ALSO this is gonna be slowburn bc that's just how I write. klance will be endgame i p rom ise.  
> (last note I promise) Pidge is an nb girl bc that's how i personally id. I know she's not in canon, but I'm gonna have her going by she/they pronouns bc thats how i, personally, wish she was

“C’mon Pidge, seriously?”

Their grip on Keith’s wrist was iron-tight. “Look. We’ve been in college for what, four months? And the only person you’ve gone as far to befriend is me--your  _ roommate _ .”

Keith exhaled through his teeth, “Yeah, Pidge, and? I’m focused on classes.”

They laughed at that. “Bullshit. You and I both know you could pass those classes in your sleep. It’s time you met some new people.”

Keith grimaced. They weren’t wrong, as hard as it was to admit. They had both started at Altea University four months ago, and Keith had done little more than go to classes and study alone in his shared room. His roommate, Pidge, had gone out to various clubs and competitions, and was taking  _ way _ more advanced classes than Keith could fathom, and still had time to befriend people. The only friends Keith had pinned down were Pidge and his own brother, a junior, and  _ that _ one came built in.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want friends, he just didn’t bother with them. Keith hated awkward small talk before classes and hated the crowded dining halls even more. Even getting a stranger as a roommate had been stressful, and he had begged Shiro to let him room with him, but Shiro had been firm about Keith meeting new people and branching out. Besides, Shiro was living in a suite with his boyfriend and best friend, and the last thing Keith wanted was the nonstop PDA that surely went on over there.

That was how, on a freezing cold January night, Pidge had managed to convince Keith to join them on their weekly Dungeons and Dragons night over in Montgomery Hall.

Keith had scoffed, of course, at the first mention of Dungeons and Dragons. He could be considered a geek, sure. He played Zelda occasionally. He had a Steam account with Undertale on it. He watched a few animes, but was that even the plural? Japanese cartoons. Whatever. 

But  _ Dungeons and Dragons _ ? Yikes. That was another level he wasn’t sure he wanted to breach. Something about the words brought images of extremely pale unshaven men dressed as elves in a basement belonging to one of their moms, yelling something about stats while rolling a lot of dice and eating Doritos mixed with Mountain Dew. 

Pidge said it wasn’t as nerdy as he feared, but Keith couldn’t be too sure. After all, he had been in the same room as Pidge while they yelled about Overwatch nerfing Mercy again, or something along those lines, and knew they were on a level he couldn’t fathom. Plus, their other hand held a bag of nacho-flavored Doritos, which was a little much for him,  _ and _ two sets of custom dice in their favorite colors.

There were a lot of dice in those bags.

Keith relented however, and was now on his way over to an all out nerd fest. The warmth of Montgomery Hall was welcoming, at least, compared to the frigid air outside. Pidge waved over to a few people studying down in the common room before heading up the stairs.

Keith looked back at the common room, confused. “We aren’t playing down here? Where there are comfy chairs and an easy escape route?”

“Fuck no,” Pidge laughed. “You think I’d do something this geeky in public?”

Keith just stared stonily in response.

“Alright, you’re not wrong. I totally would. The rest of them, however, are not quite my speed yet and need to maintain some integrity, yeah?”

He didn’t answer again. Nerves that had been simmering in his stomach since that afternoon when he agreed to go were reaching a boiling point. He worried that if he opened his mouth to say something, a little extra would follow suit.

They finally stopped in front of room 610. The door was the same bland beige as the rest of the hall, but whoever lived inside worked determinedly to cover up the fact. A whiteboard with various messages from hallmates was stuck at eye level, a few markers in rainbow colors taped up around. Above that were two nametags clearly issued by the RA, one reading “LANCE” in large block letters, the other one crossed out illegibly with a sticky-note reading “HUNK” underneath. The rest of the door had an enormous Ariana Grande poster on it and too many heart-shaped stickers to count.

Pidge knocked out a beat on the door, and the sounds of crashing and shuffling came from behind before it was wrenched open by an absolute mountain of a man. He had a yellow AU Lions shirt on and, curiously, an orange sweatband around his forehead like he just came from a run in the 80s.

He grinned down at Pidge (yes,  _ down _ . Pidge was short, but Keith was sure this guy was taller than he was, and maybe even Shiro) and swept them up in a tight hug. “Good to see ya, Pidge! Thanks for bringing chips. I needed something salty to balance out the cookies I baked for this session.”

Pidge tried and failed to look annoyed with the hug. “Yeah, yeah, big guy. I also brought my roommate, Keith. I figured one more person in the campaign can’t hurt, right?”

The guy smiled over at Keith a little shyer than he expected, and held out a hand. “Hey, man. I’m Hunk.”

Keith shook his hand uncertainly. “The aforementioned Keith.”

He smiled and turned. “Alright, c’mon you guys. If we don’t start soon we’ll be making characters until three.”

Pidge rolled their eyes, muttering something about customization, and pulled Keith into the room.

His first look at the nerd cave was...unexpected. Keith had expected shelves of action figures and those stupid pop-funky-whatever things, posters of half-dressed Lord of the Rings women, or a sign saying “Game Over” in 8-bit font. He at least expected to see a poster of one or two Doctors.

What he didn’t expect was a relatively normal looking dorm. Bunk bed with one cleanly made bed, one haphazardly destroyed bed. Another poster of Ariana Grande and one next to it of Carly Rae Jepsen (whom he only recognized because her name was in large letters near the word “emotion”). Glow-in-the-dark stars arranged in a surprisingly accurate map of the northern hemisphere. A blue mesh hamper filled with clothes and a dresser stacked with an assortment of textbooks, makeup, and the smallest box TV Keith had ever seen, with a GameCube plugged in.

All in all it was comfortably average. The only uncomfortable thing about the room was the sheer amount of people in it. Three, no,  _ four _ people sat squished in the small space, chatting amiably. 

Keith spotted Shiro first. He knew Shiro would be here--it was one of the only reasons he agreed to come. He was sitting on the floor talking with a girl Keith had seen a few times around campus but never spoke to, a tall willowy black girl with the most gorgeous platinum silver hair he’d ever seen. She was the kind of pretty that didn’t require an interest in girls to notice--she just was. Keith knew next to nothing about her, except that she always had the right questions and answers in class, had a crowd of fanboys fawning over her at any given time, and was much too...something to be here. Popular wasn’t the right word. Cool? She was like a Victorian painting come to life: beautiful with an air of royal regality that wasn’t attainable by anything but birth. Not the thing he expected at a roleplaying game.

Sitting behind her was an equally tall guy with soft brown skin, sharp blue eyes, and the most obnoxious voice Keith ever heard. He vaguely recognized him too from his classes, mostly from the loud voice. He was braiding the girl’s hair and joking with her and Shiro, laughing loudly as deft fingers quickly worked their way through her long hair.

Keith only noticed the last person once he fully entered the room. Pidge’s brother and Shiro’s best friend, Matt, sat on the top bunk of the bed tapping away at a laptop. That one made sense at least. Matt was the biggest nerd he had met, next to his sibling.

Shiro smiled at Keith when he followed Pidge inside. “Keith! I’m glad you made it.”

Keith knew he was sincere. After all, he had only just been texting Shiro to try and argue to let him stay at home in bed. “Yeah, well. Pidge wouldn’t let me stay alone.”

Matt laughed from the top bunk. “They’re a fucking menace. I’m genuinely sorry you have to live with them.”

Pidge flipped him the bird before gesturing to the rest of the room. “Shiro I hope you know, Allura’s the gorgeous one we somehow scored, Lance is the dweeb we have to suffer with because it’s his room, Hunk you met, and you already know that insufferable bastard.” They flipped Matt off once more for good measure when they reached him. 

Shiro laughed, Allura smiled cheerily and waved at him, Lance winked and shot a finger gun before absorbing what Pidge had said, then gave a sharp “hey!” in their direction. Hunk gave another shy smile, and Matt gave him a polite “‘sup” without looking up from his screen. 

Keith stood awkwardly, unsure of how to react to all of them before saying, “uh, I’m Keith.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we know. Pidge insisted on bringing their roommate even though a five person campaign is plenty.”

Keith felt his face burn before Matt jutted in. “Not quite. I mean, yeah, Pidge volunteered you, but I was the one who said I wanted six players, jackass.”

Allura reached back to smack Lance lightly upside the head. “None of that, none of that. Now Matt,” she said, turning back to him. “What’s the plan for this campaign?”

The sudden silence in the room was incredible. Hunk passed Keith a pillow to sit on before sitting down himself, and the five of them turned up to Matt expectantly. Keith looked around at the others uncertainly before turning his attention up as well.

Matt cleared his throat, clearly enjoying being the center of attention, and cracked his knuckles dramatically. “Lady, gentlemen, gremlin, lend me your ears, for the time has finally come upon us: Dungeons and Dragons...in  _ Space. _ ”

The room erupted into chaos. Lance shrieked something in an octave meant for dogs, presumably a shocked “what?!” Pidge jumped to their feet cheering loudly while dancing something along the lines of a victory dance with an equally excited Hunk. Allura clapped her hands and laughed loudly. Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose and smiled, annoyed with his best friend’s dramatics and reveal but affectionate nonetheless.

Keith sat in the middle of this pandemonium, unsure how to react. He was even more confused than he had been when Pidge invited him to this whole charade. Dungeons and Dragons in space? Wasn’t this supposed to be some high-fantasy game with elves and hobbits?

Matt raised his arms in the air and the room quieted again. “You are all on a spaceship in a galaxy far, far away, stopping the end of life as we know it from an intergalactic dictator. You’re all warriors for justice, fighting your way against this dictator and his armies, saving various planets for the good of the universe. Now, be free! Create your characters!”

The others bubbled excitedly over the news. Allura immediately stood up and went over to the top bunk, whispering something to Matt, who’s eyes glittered as he nodded and tapped something rapidly into his computer.

Shiro quietly took Keith aside and handed him a complicated sheet of paper and a pencil. “Okay, the main objective is to not get too overwhelmed with all this. I’m gonna help you make your character, alright?”

Keith nodded, immediately too overwhelmed. The sheet was covered in miniscule writing saying things like “Animal Handling” and “Charisma” and “Passive Wisdom (Perception).”

“Alright, good. Now, the first thing we’re gonna do is figure out your race.”

Shiro guided him through the worryingly thick textbook-like Player’s Handbook, settling him through things like race, class, and background. Keith decided to go close to home, picking human as his race, fighter as his class, and outlander as his background. Shiro had suggested the latter jokingly, but Keith really liked the description, despite the silly name. He was surprising himself with how much he was already liking this game when they hadn’t even played yet.

After all that Shiro handed him a few regular dice that looked suspiciously like they came from a Monopoly box. “Okay, so roll these four dice and add up the top three numbers. So, for example,” he rolled the dice. “I discard the one and add together the two fives and the three for a thirteen. Get it?”

Keith nodded, rolling the dice. 

Shiro whistled. “Damn, okay, sixteen for your first roll isn’t half bad, little bro. Now do that again five times, and write down all your numbers.”

As tedious as it sounded, Keith could do little but follow along. He rolled again and again, writing down the numbers as he went: sixteen, thirteen, eighteen, nine, six, and eleven.

“Dude,” Keith jumped at the sudden proximity. Lance was leaning over his shoulder, looking at his numbers. “Dude, you fuckin’ min-maxed the shit out of your character with those rolls.”

Keith lurched away. “What the fuck do any of those words mean.”

Shiro laughed. “‘Min-max’ means you have some really low numbers and some really high numbers. So your character will be really strong in some things and really weak in others with not a lot of in between. Don’t worry about the nerd jargon,” he added after seeing Keith’s face.

After that they worked out a few technicalities with his character. Shiro explained what the different stats meant using something he called the “tomato theory” before recommending where some of Keith’s rolls should go. He explained that, as a fighter, Keith should probably put his eighteen in strength and his sixteen in constitution, then do whatever he pleased with the other numbers. 

Definitely overthinking it, Keith deliberated for a while before putting the eleven in wisdom, the nine in intelligence, and the six in charisma. He looked up from his sheet at Shiro. “You said I don’t technically  _ have _ to put my second-highest roll in constitution, right?”

Shiro nodded. “Those are just standard. Con controls your health.”

Keith thought for a second, then erased the sixteen and changed it to a thirteen, putting the former in the dexterity box.

Shiro smiled. “See? I knew you’d be creative when it came to this game. Already branching out from my sage wisdom.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “They’re just stats, Shiro. What’s next?”

“Next” was apparently all of the skills and bonuses. Apparently as a human he got to add one to all of his stat rolls, making his charisma stat his only negative and his strength score a whopping nineteen. He also got an additional language, something Shiro said he should ask Matt for since they probably weren’t using Elvish and Gobbledygook (yes, a real language) in this campaign.

The list of skills, intimidating in length, turned out to be relatively simple. He got two skills for being an outlander, athletics and survival, plus got to choose a few more for being a fighter. He decided to go with intimidation and perception, dutifully filling out the numbers as Shiro instructed.

Then came the personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw. Shiro explained these helped some people with cementing a good character background and helping the player get into the fiction of the game. He could choose from the list, roll, or come up with his own.

Keith then got his chainmail, longsword and shield, crossbow, and a slew of items all in an explorer’s pack. He chose the “dueling” fighting style, rolled his health, listened to a long-winded explanation of which dice to use when and what “alignment” meant, and began to learn the basics of how to fight. It was a lot of information, but Keith was surprised to find he was enjoying himself while listening to Shiro go on about the difference of good and lawful, and how lawful evil was most certainly  _ not _ a softer version of chaotic evil.

“Wait, hold on.” Keith held up a hand, interrupting Shiro’s speech. “What about you? We’ve spent all this time building my character but no time on yours.”

The other five groaned loudly in unison, startling Keith. “Don’t worry, Keith,” Pidge butted in. “Shiro has his character. Human paladin. Soldier with the knight variant. Lawful Good.”

Shiro shrugged, unabashed. “What? I know what I like.”

Matt shook his head. “Shiro has been playing the  _ same goddamned character _ for the past three years. I keep threatening to kill him off and he keeps playing the same fucking guy over and over.”

“The only time he changed it was to play the human paladin Sven,” Hunk chimed in. “It was literally Shiro with a shitty Swedish accent.”

“Christ,” Lance laughed. “Remember that time he  _ did _ die and came back as the human paladin Ryu? Shiro’s twin brother who was  _ also _ lawful good paladin knight?”

“Okay, settle down, settle down.” Matt held up his hands again. “Do you all have characters?”

They all nodded and went around the semi-circle, introducing themselves in character. It was a level of nerd Keith could barely handle.

“My name is Princess Allura of Altea,” Allura began. “I’m the heir to a lost throne after Matt killed off my parents and destroyed my home planet and race, which--rude. I’m the last of my kind and the owner of this spaceship, which I’m calling the Castle of Lions. I’m an elvish sorcerer with wild magic origins and a background in nobility, of course.”

The others nodded along like this made perfect sense. Keith had no idea how to go about this, thankful he was the last on the list.

Lance stood up, next in line and ready to make the floor his stage. “Meet Lance McClain, your dashing and handsome super sharpshooter extraordinaire! I was the best fighter pilot at my space school on Earth, of course, and best friends with Hunk and Pidge before we got to space. Ladies love me, obviously, and I’m a super badass ready to throw down. I’m a human ranger with an awesome laser gun, my favored enemy is whatever the evil empire aliens are, and y’all know my favored terrain is the ocean and  _ before you say anything Matt the ocean is a terrain you can fuckin’ fight me you little bitch. _ ”

Matt held up his hands. “I’ll just treat it like it’s the coast. But, like, dude. We’re gonna be in space. You want the ocean as your terrain?”

He nodded emphatically. “Yeah I’m saying I get a swim speed of 30 for it. I’m pulling that homebrew.”

“We’ll discuss it. Next?”

Lance sat down, seemingly satisfied with that answer. Hunk cleared his throat and remained seated. “Alrighty then. My character is Hunk, student at the same space school as Lance and Pidge. I was an engineer before I ended up in space, or I guess training to be one in school, but now I’m here. I’m a dwarven cleric in the life domain, because I can already tell we’re gonna need a healer, and my background is guild artisan, I guess? Unless we want to homebrew a student background.”

“As a student you get minus six on all wisdom checks and resistance to poison damage on alcohol,” Pidge said dryly.

Matt snorted. “We can talk about that too. Pidgeotto?”

Pidge cracked their knuckles. “Alright. My name is Pidge Gunderson. I was the best engineer at our space school, obviously, and graced these two dorks with my presence when they deserved it. I ended up in space somehow, but am totally going ham over all the sick alien tech there totally has to be, which, Matt, I’m expecting impressive alien tech. I’m a halfling rogue already telling you guys I’m planning ahead and am definitely gonna be an assassin so watch your fuckin’ backs, bitches.”

They all laughed, then looked over at Shiro, who looked surprised. “Really? You want my character description?”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “I know you and my brother did some bullshit to your character beforehand. Give us the bullshit.”

He smiled. “Alright, alright. I’m Takashi Shirogane, lawful good human paladin knight variant. I was the best pilot our school had so they sent me to Pluto with two of our best scientists: Matt and Dad Holt. Our mission failed though and as far as Earth knows all of us are dead.”

The room went silent, stunned into shock. It was a darker backstory than they were expecting. 

Matt smiled down from the top bunk wickedly at the total silence. “Perfect. Keith, you wanna wrap us up?”

Even though he had known it was coming, Keith had no idea what to do. He hadn’t planned a backstory nearly as well as the others had. “Uh, my name is Keith. I’m a human fighter? Um, my background is in outlander and, uh, I guess I attended the same space school as those four?”

Pidge looked skeptically over at him. “If you did, then why don’t we know you?”

Lance scoffed. “Are you kidding? He was in all our classes! I can’t believe you didn’t notice him there, Pidge!” He nudged them in the ribs.

“Actually,” Keith said with a sudden burst of inspiration, “I wasn’t in your classes. I mean, I was at first, but I dropped out when Shiro died. Well, everyone said he died but I knew he didn’t die, so I went out to the, uh, the desert outside of school and tried to find out what happened to Shiro. That’s why my background is outlander, because I lived out in the middle of nowhere. Also,” he looked Lance square in the eye. “I was the best pilot in our class before I dropped out.”

Lance turned bright red and swelled up like a frog. “No way! I called it before you did, mullet man. Right?” He turned to Matt.

Matt, meanwhile, looked ecstatic over Keith’s sudden involvement. “Roll an athletics contest.”

Lance emptied a Ziploc bag of blue dice out on the floor, seizing the twenty-sided die with flourish. “Fine! Prepare to meet thy doom, mullet!”

Keith snorted, going through the green dice Pidge had lent him until he found the one with the most sides, rolling it with a shrug, then looking down at it. “Okay, I rolled a nineteen. What did you roll?”

Lance blanched. “I rolled a four. Who invited this guy again?”

Cackling, Matt said, “Keith wasn’t just the best pilot in your class, he was the best pilot at school. Of course, Shiro was the best ever, but he graduated and died in space so Keith totally took the throne. But Keith, why would you drop out after all this?!”

All eyes turned back to Keith. “Um, I guess I didn’t?”

Matt gasped. “So you were  _ kicked _ out? How scandalous!”

“Wow, Keith,” Pidge punched him playfully on the arm. “What the hell did you do, you rapscallion you?”

“I, um.” He looked down at his arm, unsure. “I punched a professor in the face.”

Silence, then explosive laughter. Even Shiro, usually so controlled, couldn’t help busting up at the thought of Keith punching a professor.

“Okay so,” Matt began, wiping a tear away. “So which professor did Keith deck?”

“Oh, I’ll stop you right there,” Pidge said. “It was totally Iverson.”

Professor Iverson was their toughest, bitchiest professor. He taught calc and was the kind of guy who refused to round an 89.9999% up to a clean A-. Any student given half a chance would be lying if they said they hadn’t fantasized giving him a swift kick after a particularly brutal test.

The thought of Keith punching Iverson was too sweet to ignore, so the others ran along with it. Lance spoke emphatically of the scene, saying he never thought someone would have the balls to actually go through with such a thing, while Hunk claimed he recorded the thing on his phone.

They began to mix their backstories a bit more after that. Pidge explained that after Shiro went missing in space that meant their brother and dad were gone too, so they secretly enrolled at school in search of it all. Lance grumbled about his four from before, saying he had actually been a cargo pilot before Keith got kicked out but was totally still the new best fighter pilot the space school ever had.

Then Allura suddenly yawned, loud and ungraceful. That broke everyone out of the excitement of the new campaign, checking their phones in disbelief to see several hours had already gone by. It was well past midnight.

Allura stood and stretched her arms high above her head. “Well, as fun as this has been, I’m afraid my bed is calling too loudly for me to ignore. Same time next week?”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about this totally getting away on character building, guys. I promise I have actual gameplay ready for next week.” He hopped off the bed and turned to Shiro. “Ready to roll out?”

Shiro was already up, patting Keith on the shoulder. “Yeah, we probably should. Want to come over Keith?”

“No, I’m okay.” He had gotten his social fill for the evening, and could hear his own bed calling out all the way from Santos Hall.

Shiro gave him one last smile, clearly saying “I’m proud” without embarrassing him in front of five other people, and left with Matt and Allura.

Pidge somersaulted backwards onto their feet. “Fuck the old folks. Wanna double dash?”

They walked over to the GameCube and tiny TV without waiting for an answer, popping in a disc and tossing controllers to Lance and Hunk before switching on the TV. The nostalgic startup sound rang out into the room, and soon obnoxious Nintendo music blared from the tinny speakers.

“You want in?” They held a controller to Keith expectantly. “You’re free to go if you want to, but we’re gonna drink and play Mario Kart for a couple hours if you’re interested in the Immersive Nerd Experience™️.”

Lance ripped open the bag of Doritos, shoving several chips into his mouth at once. “First of all, Pidge, how the fuck did you say that with your mouth out loud, you living, meme-loving fuck. Second, let the man go free. We barely have enough beer for the three of us as it is, and Hunk doesn’t even drink.”

They rolled their eyes but kept the controller held out to Keith. “It’s up to you, my dude.”

“Uh, I’m cool for now, thanks. I’m gonna go appreciate my temporary single.” He tried a smile over at the other two. “Thanks for hosting, though.”

“Dude, that’s gnarly.” Lance grinned at him devilishly. “We all know what ‘appreciate a single’ means. Tell your left hand we said hello and sorry for keeping you away for so long.”

Hunk wrestled Lance into a headlock, grimacing up at Keith with a sympathetic look. “Please ignore my disgusting roommate. He’s twelve years old in mind, body, and spirit.”

Keith meanwhile could feel the tips of his ears burning. “That’s not what I meant, asshole. I was gonna go read.”

“Yeah,” Lance choked out from the headlock. “When Hunk leaves I catch up on reading all my sites, too. Tell Jessica Simpson I said hello then as well.”

“Dude, seriously?” Hunk looked down at his roommate. “Still? It’s been like, eight years. Get over Jessica Simpson.”

“Never!” He declared valiantly, “She shall be my bride and teach me how to roller skate!”

Pidge groaned and looked over at Keith. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. Escape while you can, dude.”

Keith backed out, watching Hunk and Lance devolve into actual wrestling while Pidge ignored them, setting up the game. Hunk gave him a last wave goodbye while Lance flailed about, clearly unfazed by the scrabbling underneath him.

He shut the door and began the walk back to his dorm. It certainly hadn’t been what he had been dreading: no grossness, no basements, no uncontrollable geekiness. Sure, he hadn’t understood half the crap Shiro told him, but it had actually been pretty fun.

The others, on the other hand, he wasn’t so sure about. Allura seemed nice but was clearly way nerdier than he ever expected. She had invented her own alien race that she was the princess of, for crying out loud. Hunk was shy, but clearly had to have more to him that Keith hadn’t seen yet if he could survive as Lance’s roommate.

Lance. God, that guy was a handful and Keith barely knew him. Every word out of his mouth was either outrageously offensive or cringe-worthy flirting. He boasted relentlessly about his talents in the game before it even started, and Keith had the feeling he was the same in real life.

And yet, Shiro liked him. Shiro was one of the most discerning people Keith knew, and if he was willing to hang out with such an insufferable bastard then he must not have been that bad.

He’d have to wait and see, then, on Lance. The guy really had nowhere but up to go.

Keith sighed, walking the rest of the way to the dorm in a daze. Why he was letting this guy get to him was beyond him, anyway.

He unlocked his bare door, the dark, empty room welcoming him. The book he’d been reading earlier lay open on his unkempt bed, spine up, and he picked it up.

Attempting to read proved fruitless, the silence of the room really pressing him for the first time in a while, and he sighed before giving up and switching off the light. He rolled over and stared at the wall, eventually drifting off into an eventful sleep full of stars, space princesses, and an uncomfortably handsome gunslinger with a face he forgot by morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading c: likes/comments are always appreciated  
> yell at me on tumblr @toastyzuko  
> sorry for any mistakes my beta reader is me so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more dungeons more dragons more memes no allura (sorry)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again already. I've set myself a goal to write ~5000 words a day since I'm in a rut, and this is the product. As for the last chapter i swear this isn't a kallura fic i'm just really fucking gay for allura and described her in heavier detail than anyone else whoops. Also, shoutout to @riesonable for telling my dumb ass how to make this show up as a multichapter fic hopefully it's fixed now  
> ALSO there's some mention of underage drinking if that bothers you, but nothing actually in the fic (just a background mention of beer). theyre college kids, linda. theyre gonna drink cheap beer and smoke bad pot.

Saturday met Keith drumming his fingers impatiently, waiting for the clock to hit eight so he and Pidge could go to Montgomery for the game.

They didn’t seem to notice, absorbed in something or other on their laptop with a pair of enormous headphones on while occasionally muttering something about a “fucking polygon.” They had been completely enraptured for the past three hours since getting home, sitting down without a word to Keith. He didn’t really mind; that was his and Pidge’s usual MO. They weren’t super chatty with each other, preferring instead to live in quiet harmony. The first time they had really hung out was last Saturday.

Eventually Pidge let out a loud sigh, closing their computer with a light click. “I can feel your impatience from here. You’re radiating it.”

Keith stopped his drumming, looking over at his roommate. “Fuck, sorry.”

They rolled their eyes. “It’s fine, dude. You ready to go?”

He looked over at the clock, then back at Pidge in surprise. “It’s only six. Won’t they be annoyed if we go over early?”

They stood up and stretched, popping their spine with a satisfying crunch. “Nah, man. Hunk and Lance couldn’t care less if I moved in tomorrow with no notice and a futon. Come on.”

They shrugged on an enormous forest green AU sweatshirt that reached their knees and well past their hands, leaving nothing but scrawny jean-clad legs, enormous snow boots, and a tiny face visible. Keith smothered a laugh at his teeny roommate and geared up for the frigid walk in his own threadbare jacket and black gloves, grabbing Pidge’s spare dice before he forgot.

“You gonna get your own dice sometime soon so I can have mine own back?” They glanced at him out of the corner of their eye while searching for something in the destruction of their bottom dresser drawer.

He stilled and thought  for a moment before responding. “I guess? If I get into the game then yeah. I don’t even know where to find dice.”

Pidge snorted, holding up a lumpy knit hat triumphantly before smashing it on their head. “Don’t worry about that, my dude. There’s a great store a close walk away in town where you can get all kinds of nerd crap. If Matt was able he’d sell his soul there for store credit.”

They fetched their own dice, character sheet, and keys from their desk, waving for Keith to follow along. 

The walk over to Montgomery Hall was somehow worse than last week. The wind was bitter already, the sun having set a few hours ago, and Keith kept checking Pidge hadn’t been swept away into a snowbank.

Once again the warm artificial air of Montgomery was a welcome treat. The two of them paused inside before heading upstairs, breathing heavily from the exertion of the walk. A few people were once again studying in the common room, different from last time but still hard at work for a Saturday night. They waved over to Pidge, who waved back tiredly before beginning the trek up the stairs to room 610.

This time when they got to the colorful door Keith could hear loud music thumping from inside. He recognized it vaguely from Lance’s headphones and felt instant disgust at being able to do such a thing. Why Lance wore headphones at all was beyond him. If he was going to blast pop loud enough for everyone to hear, he might as well not damage his ears in the process.

Pidge hammered against the door with shocking force, prompting someone two doors down to open their own and glare at them. They ignored the look and kept pounding away until the door flew open, nearly punching Hunk in the chest.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He laughed, catching Pidge’s tiny fist in his massive hands. “You’re here early! Lance is gonna be pissed.”

They scoffed, pushing past Hunk into the fray. “Lance can bite my ass.”

Hunk looked over at Keith with a helpless expression before inviting him in.

Inside the music was even worse. Pidge was searching for the speakers, shouting various curses over to Lance while picking through pairs of jeans and t-shirts on the floor. Lance himself was sitting cross-legged in front of an open closet door with a full length mirror, slathering some kind of thick green cream on his face, hair up in a bright pink scrunchie. He was belting along to the lyrics, something about being a dangerous woman, stopping with a shriek when he saw Keith.

“Who let  _ him _ in here?!” He pointed a long finger at him. “He can’t see me like this! I’m in my most basic bitch form!”

Keith stared back, unimpressed. “I don’t get it. Are you getting in character or something for the game? Is this an alien costume?”

Lance sputtered. “ _ What _ ?! This is a face mask! It makes my skin silky smooth!”

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I thought it just looked like that. I wash mine with soap.”

Lance looked like he was about to explode, struggling with whether or not that was a compliment and how to go about the horror of Keith using bar soap on his face. Hunk and Pidge on the other hand looked like they were going to pass out from not laughing, red in the face and gasping for air.

Pidge finally found the speakers under a pair of blue plaid boxers, moving them without a second thought to finally turn down the insufferable music. Lance jumped up at that, shouting about sacrilege and how they  _ absolutely could not mute our Lord and Savior Ariana _ . They jumped up and ran out the door, cackling as Lance sprinted after them in his bathrobe. 

The silence rang in Keith’s ears for a second before Hunk finally exploded in laughter. “Did you mean to dunk that hard on Lance or does that just come naturally to you?”

Keith looked at him, slightly dazed. “Uh, I’m not sure?”

Hunk laughed harder. “Word of advice-- _ nobody _ takes their beauty regimine nearly as seriously as Lance. I mean that literally, too. He has more makeup than Allura and is proud of the fact. He takes thirty minutes in the morning  _ and _ at night to do a different face mask or exfoliate or whatever, depending on the day of the week. I’ve caught him putting under eye cream on me when he thought I was asleep once.”

Keith could feel himself pale at that. “Jesus, okay. No comments about the face shit then.”

Hunk shook his head. “Nah, that vainglorious bastard loves when people ask him questions. And the comment about his skin just looking like that was a good one too.”

Hunk moved then, opening the door behind Keith without a word.

His timing couldn’t have been more perfect, almost like he had a sixth sense for this kind of crap. As he opened it Pidge came dashing back in, followed closely in tow by an obscenely irate Lance at their heels. They scrambled nimbly up to the top bunk and shoved the speaker under their sweatshirt, the sounds of 80s-themed pop muffled by the thick fabric.

Lance bared his teeth animalistically. “Damn you, gremlin. You know I can’t wrestle that away until this cream has sat for at least twenty minutes.”

They looked back down at him with a large grin, adjusting their skewed glasses. The music suddenly changed to something Keith actually recognized from his own dorm: Mother, Mother. He only knew it because of Pidge, but still.

Lance looked up aghast. “Pidge, I just changed the password on my speakers. How did you already crack it?!”

They gave him another wolfish grin. “A magician never reveals their secrets.”

He sat down in front of the mirror with a huff, seemingly accepting that cryptic answer, and pulled out a bottle of turquoise nail polish and a file. He began carefully shaping each nail, quiet in concentration.

Hunk meanwhile pulled out a box from the second drawer of his box, carding through it deep in thought. “Any requests on cookies this week? I’m thinking of trying this double fudge milkshake recipe.”

He was met with a resounding chorus of “fuck yes” from the other two and laughed, pulling a notecard out of the box. “Keith, wanna come help me bake these out? I probably need two sets of hands if I want to finish these before eight, and I can’t trust Pidge around raw batter anymore.” Pidge stuck their tongue out from the top bunk, tapping away on their phone. 

Keith shifted awkwardly. He hadn’t spent as much time with Hunk before, but he seemed perfectly nice. On the other hand, he was incapable of setting foot in a kitchen without something setting immediately on fire. Shiro still teased him about the time he burnt a hot dog while  _ boiling _ it. “Uh, I guess? I’m not very good…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pidge said. “Hunk did a year of culinary school before coming here and could teach a goat how to bake.”

Hunk blushed deep red against his russet skin. “I just think anyone can cook!”

Pidge lobbed a balled-up sock at him. “Yeah okay, Remy the Rat. Just make the cookies.”

Hunk fetched a large plastic bowl from the same dresser drawer, along with a pan, a bright pink rubber spatula with a picture of a cartoon kitten holding up a fluorescent cake, and a few measuring cups in assorted rainbow colors, gesturing for Keith to follow.

They headed back down the flights of stairs to a tiny, dingy community kitchen lit by three bright lights, the left one flickering every so often just enough to immediately give Keith a headache. Hunk walked over to the ancient oven, flipping a few switches and buttons before turning a dial and giving the rickety machine a resounding smack. 

Keith flinched at the noise, and Hunk looked back at him apologetically. “Sorry about that. This old girl doesn’t start without a little encouragement.”

“And the Konami code, evidently.”

Hunk gave a hearty laugh at that. “I knew there was more nerd in you than you let on! Don’t be afraid to unleash the beast around us.”

He began tooling around the kitchen, picking up various bags of flour and sugar and chocolate. Everything he picked up had a large yellow sticky note in the shape of a cat’s head reading “Please don’t use!! If you’d like something, come to room 610 and request it on the whiteboard from Hunk!” Keith supposed that was the most foolproof way to avoid people stealing your things, offering to bake something in return, though he didn’t know how many people would try and steal flour.

Hunk glanced over the notecard, then rattled off instructions to Keith, nearly too fast for him to follow. He began spooning flour into the largest cup measure, the yellow plastic one with a bold white “1” emblazoned on it, and tossed Keith a tiny pot with a stick of butter in it. 

“Chop up the chocolate and melt it in with the butter. Oooh, maybe melt the butter first until it’s quiet, then add the chocolate.” Hunk looked over his notes again, taking a pen from behind his ear and adding a few scrawls. “Yeah, try that.”

Keith followed the directions the best he could. The smell of melting butter filled the kitchen with a warm bakery scent, attracting a few stragglers to poke their heads in to see what was happening. He listened carefully as the butter sizzled and popped, stirring it a few times tentatively with the plastic spatula.

“Hunk?”

“Yeah?” Hunk looked up from the bowl full of various ingredients, whisking them faster than Keith could keep up with.

“The butter is turning brown. Is that okay?”

“More than okay! The best!” Hunk lifted his nose to the air like a dog, breathing deeply with a smile. “That rich nuttiness is exactly what I wanted. Turn off the heat and scrape in all that chocolate, mixing until it’s all melted.”

Keith dutifully followed along, presenting the pot to Hunk. He surveyed it carefully, then nodded and poured the mixture into his bowl, whisking a few times before dumping in flour, cocoa powder, even more chopped chocolate, and a can of sweetened condensed milk. The resulting mix was a thick batter-like dough streaked through with caramel stripes of milk and enormous chunks of chocolate. He spooned them out onto the tray, checking one last time before popping them into the oven. The oven in turn gave a dangerous shudder.

Keith turned back to Hunk, who had begun washing the various clutter in a rather scuffed sink. “So, Pidge said you did a year of culinary school?”

He smiled a bit wistfully. “Yeah, down south in Georgia. Why?”

Keith shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I’m wondering how you ended up at Altea instead of continuing that route?”

Hunk stared hard at the suds, scrubbing the pot with a bit more vigor than Keith thought was strictly necessary. “Culinary school was...a lot. I love cooking and baking, don’t think anything else. I mean, I love it enough to have devoted a year of my life in seriously crazy training. The only thing is, I don’t love culinary people.”

Keith looked over at him silently until he continued. “It was crazy competitive. Don’t get me wrong--the engineering program here is crazy difficult too. But there I wasn’t in a class of four thousand engineering majors. I was one of twenty, and by the time I left, one of sixteen. The dropout rate was so crazy high, and the profession is so cutthroat, that people went really hard. There was a public list of students people thought would and wouldn’t graduate.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Keith knew his classes here were tough, no doubt in his mind about that, but he couldn’t imagine something as crazy as a public deadpool.

“So I left. There’s no use surrounding yourself with shitty people when you can be just as happy elsewhere with good people.” He began towelling off the dishes, smile returning.

There it was. Such a simple philosophy, yet Keith could get it. He couldn’t help but admit he’d been happier in the past week with good people than when he viewed everyone as public enemy number one.

“But enough of that!” Hunk clapped, startling Keith out of his own thoughts. “The cookies are gonna be done soon and we gotta get them out of here before the vultures show up and leech them away.”

True to his word, the cookies came out of the oven puffed and dark brown, smelling heavenly and rich. The oven gave a choked rattle when Hunk opened the door, and seemed to collapse in relief when he turned it off. 

Immediately several faces poked into the kitchen like moths to a flame. “Yo, Hunk, my man, my dude, you sharing?”

Hunk sighed with a defeated smile. “Yeah, Rolo. I’ll give you two, but no more. These are for the campaign upstairs.”

Keith froze when Hunk mentioned the game so casually, but the guy didn’t seem fazed. “Aw, sweet man. Nyma’s gonna be stoked when she hears I got Hunk Cookies.”

Hunk gathered the rest of the cookies into the bowl and set off for the trek upstairs. It seemed that every landing met them with a few more hungry students asking for cookies, and every time Hunk gave them all at least one. Keith couldn’t believe his generosity, or that there would be enough cookies for the game.

Hunk saw his expression and laughed a little. “There’s no point in making food if you can’t share it.”

By the time they reached room 610, half the bowl had been given away to the droves. There were still about two dozen or more, more than enough for all of them, and Keith could tell Hunk baked too many in preparation for this.

The door opened to more people than they had left behind. Matt had returned his position on the top bunk of the bed, building a nest of pillows and shark plushies until he was satisfied. Shiro was sitting on the floor with Lance, listening with an amused expression as Lance regaled him with the past week’s events, and Pidge was hanging upside down on the bunk bed ladder tapping away at their phone.

They seemed to smell the boys’ return before they saw them, Lance and Pidge jumping up eagerly to greet them at the door and reach immediately for cookies. Hunk laughed and handed them off with few chiding comments about sharing before settling in on the floor. 

Matt cleared his throat loudly from the top bunk, effectively quieting the room. “Alright. Allura can’t be here this week because she has a massive exam in Smythe’s class on Monday, so we’re forging ahead without her for now.”

“Aw, man!” Lance whined. “What are we gonna do without our magic space princess?”

“Never fear, my boy!” Matt sat up straighter, brandishing a fist. “I present to you this: a prologue chapter!”

Pidge groaned loudly, flopping onto their back on the floor. “Does this mean we aren’t in space yet?” 

Matt’s face twisted. “Well, yeah. But don’t worry--if you get to space before the end of today I’ll just play the part of Princess Allura.” He batted his eyelashes and pursed his lips. “I look like a pretty princess, right?”

Pidge lobbed another balled up sock from the floor, booing loudly. Matt ducked to avoid it, sitting up again and cracking his knuckles. “Alright, you guys ready to begin?”

Once again, Keith was impressed with how quiet the room got. It was almost as though Matt held a spell over the other four, able to silence them with a few words.

“Okay,” he began. “The year? Far in the future. The setting? The Galaxy Garrison Space Academy, an institute run by NASA in the Arizona desert. Our story begins with Lance McClain, self proclaimed best pilot of the Galaxy Garrison, flying a simulator with his crew, Pidge Gunderson and Hunk Garrett.”

Lance looked over at the other two with a grin. “Hells yeah! I bet I’m a total beast at this simulator.”

Matt looked down at him dubiously from the top bunk. “Alrighty then. Roll me athletics to see how well you’re doing at this simulator.”

Lance’s laughter stifled, and he rolled his twenty-sided die, paling at the number that came up. 

“Wait!” He cried out, interrupting Pidge from reading aloud the very clear five. “Hold on! What’s this simulator like?! How do I know I’m using brute strength and not dex?!”

Matt considered it for a second. “Alright, fine. Let’s see a dexterity roll then, plain and simple.”

Lance smirked at his win, rolling the die again. It skittered for a second before coming to a rest, causing him to shriek and Pidge to bust up in laughter, shouting “he rolled a crit fail!”

Shiro turned to Keith, explaining quietly that when someone rolls a one they automatically fail, no matter their stats. Lance continued to scream next to him about rigged new dice something-or-other while Hunk patted his back sympathetically.

Matt took a second to compose himself. “Well, no going back from that one Lance. You try and skirt through a low overpass and bust a wing clean off the ship, crashing immediately and killing everyone on board. You all automatically fail.”

Pidge and Hunk looked up in defiance at that. “Hey!”

He looked down in return with almighty indifference. “Bring it up with your pilot. Commander Iverson waits outside where he begins ripping you a new one immediately.” He paused to roll a small triangular die. “Take three psychic damage each.”

They grumbled amongst themselves, marking down the damage. Matt continued on, undeterred. “Alright, so now that we’ve established that Lance officially, in canon,  _ sucks _ at piloting a spaceship, what are you all gonna do?”

Shiro shrugged. “I’m dead in space, I’m pretty sure.”

They all laughed at that. “Yeah, you are.” Matt said, “What about you, Keith? Any wild and crazy plans?”

Keith considered it quietly. He still had no idea what he was doing, really, and didn’t want to fuck up the game this early on. “Uh, is it okay if I just watch for now?”

He nodded. “More than okay. Jump in whenever you feel ready, my man. That leaves you three fuckers.”

Hunk and Lance began whispering amongst each other fervently before Lance shouted out, “I’m gonna sneak into town to look for hot babes!”

Pidge groaned, and Hunk immediately looked panicked. “Wait, wait, wait. Lance I thought we weren’t doing that. What if we get caught? I don’t want to get in trouble this early on, and my stealth stat sucks.”

Lance trucked right on. “Nah, screw that, Hunk! We’re training to be super dope astronauts! That’s, like, the best pick up line ever!”

Pidge buried their face in their hands. “Whatever. I’m taking my sick alien tech up to the roof to scan the universe and try to find proof of...something.”

“Pidge, you definitely don’t have sick alien tech yet. We’re ten minutes into the game and haven’t been to space yet.”

“Fine, then!” They snapped, “I take my alien  _ detecting _ tech to the roof!”

Matt shrugged. “Okay, I want the three of you to roll stealth checks.”

The three of them rolled respectively, and Keith took a second to appreciate the different dice. Pidge wasn’t the only one with a nice set in their favorite color, it seemed. They had black dice with green accents and bright 8-bit numbers, while Hunk rolled a set of butter yellow dice with pastel pink and blue numbers. Lance’s dice were surprisingly mellow considering his attitude, swirling shades of blues with wave accents and stone-colored numbers.

Lance passed by the stealth check with ease, describing with flourish ducking under wide windows and into trash cans. Hunk meanwhile passed with the skin of his teeth, attempting to mimic Lance but knocking things over with his bulky dwarven frame.

Pidge, unfortunately, rolled a three.

“So you two nearly succeed sneaking out of the school when you see Pidge leaving their room. What do you do?”

Lance looked miffed with Pidge’s low roll. “What the hell is that little dork doing?”

Pidge, as it turned out, was heading up to the roof. A failed perception check on their part meant Hunk and Lance were easily able to sneak up behind them, startling the crap out of them. Pidge then rolled to see how successful their alien-detecting tech was, despite Matt’s insistence that Earth currently didn’t  _ know _ aliens existed.

They, of course, rolled a natural twenty.

The room exploded once more as Shiro explained that was an automatic success to a very confused Keith. No wonder Matt looked so pissed.

“Alright,  _ fine _ , I guess your alien tech is really successful and you somehow manage to overhear a bunch of aliens, which is definitely the discovery of the century.”

Pidge let out an almighty whoop. “What are all these aliens saying, dear brother?”

Matt suddenly got another crafty look. “They all seem to be repeating the same thing over and over: ‘Voltron.’”

Pidge looked up at their brother. “What the fuck is a Voltron?!”

“I said your tech was successful. I didn’t say they’d be saying shit you can understand, Pidgeotto.” He smirked. “They’re  _ aliens _ , Pidge.”

Pidge looked like they were ready to fight, and Keith suddenly understood just why Matt chose to sit so far from the rest of them. Up there the only thing he had to fear were the dirty socks Pidge kept stealing from the laundry hamper to lob at him, and when they got seriously combative he could count on Hunk keeping them from climbing the ladder.

“Suddenly, from far away, a bright light flashes!” The continuation of the narrative quieted Pidge effectively. “Is it a shooting star? A comet straying a little too close to Earth? A dipshit with a firework obsession??”

“Wait,” Keith spoke for the first time in the game. “Is it falling into the desert?”

Matt had him roll for investigation, satisfying him with a “yes” when the roll was high enough. “Well, alright. I’m gonna go after it on, uh, on my motorcycle?”

“ _ What _ ?!” Lance looked up in indignation. “He gets a fucking  _ motorcycle _ and I get to crash a fake spaceship?!”

Matt fought to suppress a laugh. “Yeah, we discussed this before the game started during calc on Wednesday. It has similar stats to a horse.”

Pidge snorted. “So he’s taking his horse-bike out to the desert. Go, go, Speed Racer!”

“Uh, so I’m gonna take my motorcycle out after the light.”

Matt nodded along. “Bold introduction to the game, amigo. Are you going to rush in guns blazing or set up a distraction or what?”

Keith thought for a moment, then said, “Can I rig up a bomb in the desert?”

The others looked over at him like he was varying levels of crazy, Pidge absolutely delighted, Hunk absolutely horrified. Matt simply said, patiently, “Do you have the components for a bomb?”

“Uh, I imagine I have hydrogen peroxide under my sink and, um, fertilizer for my plants.” He followed up quickly, “I imagine I have plants since I’m living alone in the desert and need a good food source, right? So, homemade indoor farm.”

“...Alright, Keith, you have yourself a bomb then.”

“So,” Lance coughed. “Are we just, like, not going to address that Keith readily knows off the top of his head how to make a homemade bomb?”

They all silently stared at Keith, his ears burning more and more as the seconds ticked by. “It was for a high school science project! I never even made it, I just had to research how easy it was!”

Thus Keith set off an explosion far away in the desert as a distraction before charging in on his bike. After that it was all easy; describing his ride through the desert here, a roll there for something Matt called “unarmed combat.” Pidge, Lance, and Hunk described their own side of it, deciding Keith’s explosion was large enough for them to notice it and take advantage. Lance yelled about Keith’s hair being so ridiculous he could see it a mile away and recognize him, Hunk joked about sneaking back into the school kitchens.

The game was, in other words, running smoothly. Keith was once again surprised to find himself swept up in the narrative Matt was laying out. It was less about him telling a story, though, and more like they were helping him. Clearly, for example, he hadn’t been expecting Keith to make a fucking bomb out of house supplies.

But they needed him too. As they worked through the story, Pidge would occasionally ask excitedly what they saw or heard, and Keith was reminded that it was ultimately Matt’s story they were all just playing a part in.

Maybe he was thinking too much about it.

“And suddenly,” Matt said, clearly loving how enraptured the five of them were with his storytelling, “there he is. You haven’t seen him in a while, any of you, and he’s a little different now than before he left. A missing arm, a scar across the bridge of his nose, a shock of white hair. And yet, even though he’s unconscious, Keith, you don’t have a doubt in your mind: that’s your brother lying there on the table.”

They all cheered. Shiro took his introduction into the game in stride, smoothly following Matt’s narrative with the practice and precision of a geek who’s played way too much D&D.

From there Matt took them to a secret underground cavern, with the help of course of an impressive investigation roll from Hunk, recognizing a random vista as a Fraunhofer line. From there they found a giant blue lion robot that Lance somehow was able to charm with an unreasonably high charisma roll, despite it being an  _ inanimate fucking lion robot _ , and launched into space, Lance at the helm.

Unfortunately, he rolled yet another five to pilot.

Matt gleefully described the twists, turns, and barrel rolls the massive cat made in the sky while Keith turned on him angrily. “Why wouldn’t you let me pilot?!”

Lance jumped into the argument immediately, pointing a finger into Keith’s chest. “Matt said the lion liked me the best!”

Keith threw up his hands. “You’re the worst pilot ever!”

Matt then stood from the top bunk and jumped down, stretching his arms high above his head. “Alright, you two. I’m saying we end this here and now until next week because ‘A,’ it’s getting too late and ‘B,’ I don’t want to fuck up Allura’s character before she even gets to play her.”

It was true. Somehow midnight had once again come and gone without them noticing. Keith had been playing for over four hours and barely even noticed, too wrapped up in his own competitive streak.

Once again Matt and Shiro left, Shiro saying something about Adam waiting up for them at home. Pidge immediately sprang into action again, setting up the GameCube without asking the boys what they wanted.

Lance stretched out languidly like a cat. “So,” he said, turning to Keith. “Are you gonna hang out this time and game or go back to definitely not jack off alone?”

Hunk smacked him on the arm. “Lance! I thought we established last week that you were  _ not _ going to make jokes like that again to the new kid.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Keith said, looking Lance dead in the eye. “We all make jokes about what we know best.”

Hunk and Pidge let out a resounding chorus of “ohhh!” as Lance spluttered like a broken hose, blushing bright neon pink.

“But for real,” he followed up quickly. “I’m gonna head back to my book. You guys have fun though.”

Pidge and Hunk waved him goodbye as the enthusiastic Mario Party 4 music began blaring, Lance stubbornly staring at the screen without saying a word to him as he left, face still hot enough to fry an egg.

The walk back was just the same as the last night, cold beyond the blustery winds and snow. When he got back to his own blank door, Room 184, Keith wondered briefly if he and Pidge should put up some decor, then shooed away the thought like a stray cat. They just weren’t decoration people.

The silence once again rang in his ears, prompting him to put away his book and simply roll over for sleep. He groaned; Douglas Adams was going to have to wait another night.

Except, he didn’t fall asleep. 

Not right away, anyway. This time he stared at the ceiling, smiling lightly to himself as he went over the events of the night in his mind. Every time he tried to sleep his stomach fluttered in excitement, even though the next game was a week away. Maybe next time he should just give in and stick around after, playing whichever game Pidge decided on, drinking lukewarm beer from Lance’s stash.

Lance. The thought of him made Keith grow warm. How could he have  _ said _ something like that? Shiro would have disapproved had he still been there.

And yet he had turned such a pretty color.

Keith sighed, rolling over again to finally actually fall asleep. It wouldn’t do to dwell on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm always shook when people actually read this bullshit and that I'm NOT just posting into the void. As always, likes/comments are not just appreciated but adored by yours truly. I try to respond to comments but im a garbage human sometimes with a garbage human memory.  
> yell at me to keep fucking writing and stop fucking procrastinating @toastyzuko  
> yell at my beta reader to actually fuckin edit @toastyzuko   
> yell at my poor grammatical choices in the notes on your own time


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which neither dungeons nor dragons are played, but a certain birthday is celebrated instead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a lil shorter than the last two (200 words shorter) bc ya girl was busy dming a real live game yesterday that went on for four hours longer than she expected . aint that just the way.  
> TW: underage alcohol consumption. Not in a dangerous way, just a few shots. No one gets hurt but there is mention of drunkenness. Again--they're college students. let em live responsibly  
> also TW: mentions of a v graphic movie. im not gonna say *which* bc i dont want to spoil the surprise, but if you want to know go to the end notes c:  
> okay okay ill let yall read freely

When Keith woke up Wednesday morning, Pidge was standing above his bed.

He lurched back against the wall. “Pidge, what the ever-living  _ fuck _ are you doing?!”

They blinked owlishly, adjusting their glasses. “Waiting for you to wake up. It’s nearly two, you know. I got back from chem hours ago. Do you always sleep this late?”

Keith blinked back. “Do you always watch me sleep?”

They jumped off his bed and began pulling on a pair of thick socks. “Of course not. I have more interesting things to do with my life, you know.”

Keith sat up, scratching his stomach. “Well, alright. What makes this morning so special?”

“Today’s Hunk’s birthday,” Pidge said. They were wrestling with their snow boots. “I was thinking we could go to the nerd store and pick him out something good.”

They threw a black t-shirt at Keith, who put it on wordlessly. He had known on an intrinsic level that his new friends (was he allowed to call them that yet?)  would have birthdays. Everybody did, after all, but he had hoped it would be at least a little while before he needed to worry about them. 

Pidge didn’t seem stressed though as they continued to throw various articles of clothing at Keith, prompting him to finally get out from under his comforter. Santos Hall had the shittiest heating system of all the dorms, meaning their shared space heater was running full blast and Keith could still see his breath. He was grateful for the socks thrown in his direction, mismatched as they were.

He jumped at the knock on the door, lost in thoughts of investing in a warmer heater.

“Calm the fuck down,” Pidge said, opening the door. “I invited over Lance to help us shop. He’s been Hunk’s best friend since, like, the fifth grade and knows everything that big lunk wants.”

Lance burst through dramatically, headphones dangling around his neck blasting Carly Rae Jepsen loudly enough for Keith to hear it all the way across the room. He looked triumphantly at Keith then stopped, face falling. “Aw, dip. I thought I’d catch you off your groove but you’re already dressed and everything.”

“Yeah, I’ll stop you right there,” Pidge said, pulling on an enormous parka. “Keith sleeps fully dressed. Including the boots.”

Keith turned sharply towards them. “That was  _ one _ time, Pidge!”

Lance began to snicker loudly. “Sure, sure. Alright, Gremlin, Mullet-Man. Shall we proceed to the wild blue yonder?”

Keith fumed silently as he pulled on his thin coat and gloves, beginning the hopeless search for his wallet somewhere on his crowded desk. Shiro had always been the organized one out of the two of them; Keith much preferred the method of stacking papers haphazardly with a few paperclips mixed in at random intervals. The only thing stopping it from looking like a conspiracy board was the lack of red string. He knew Shiro would rather burn down his apartment than give up his binders.

A pitifully light weight smacked into him from behind, and he turned to see his wallet on the floor. “It was under your nightstand,” Pidge said, shrugging.

He picked it up wordlessly, slipping it into his pocket. He had learned a little while ago not to question when Pidge knew exactly what he was thinking. They just knew everything.

Lance picked dubiously at his jacket when he walked by on the way out. “Is this thing warm enough? It’s, like, negative forty out, my guy.”

Keith checked his phone. “Well, for one, it’s ten degrees out, not negative forty. And I don’t really get cold.”

“Yeah, but you’re wearing  _ fingerless gloves _ . You can’t seriously think that’s going to help anything.”

He shrugged, not answering. The truth was, he and Shiro lived even further north than Altea University. He had been practically raised on snowball fights in shorts and wearing t-shirts until the temperature hit single digits. Their mom, a tiny little Icelandic woman, was even worse than they were. She had decided that, despite both her sons being adopted, they would share her Scandinavian blood. It came in handy when their heating bill was a little too high, or when Shiro outgrew his new coat mere months after purchase.

The walk over to Pidge’s self-proclaimed “nerd store” wasn’t so bad. Lance had continued to squawk over his outerwear the entire way, shivering himself despite his thick knit scarf and hat. Pidge ignored them both, playing Pokemon Go while simultaneously navigating into town.

Arus, the town AU mostly encompassed, was little more than a few stores catered to the college students. An okay pizza place, a defunct bowling alley with three lanes, a tiny yarn shop; it was everything students needed outside the education they were actually receiving.

And apparently, above the pizza joint, a comic book store.

It was even smaller than Keith had expected. Shelves of thin comics stretched from the entrance to the back wall, taller ones lining the walls, shorter ones creating passages throughout the store. He immediately spotted all the famous ones when he walked in: the thick yellow tomes of  _ Watchmen,  _ the dreary spines of  _ Batman, _ the bound  _ Bone _ novels. Beyond those however were titles he’d never seen, stories about strange gods and doctors and Girl Scouts.

Aside from the mountains of books were some of the geekiest things Keith had ever laid eyes on. Tall glass cases held elaborately posed action figures fighting each other with bulging, exaggerated muscles and tiny skirts. Racks of cards boasted expansion packs for Magic the Gathering and Cards Against Humanity alike. Ancient, peeling movie posters advertised  _ When Worlds Collide, Tarantula,  _ and a whole mess of movies he’d only seen memorials for. An entire section of Dungeons and Dragons guide books, premade adventures, and dice sat squarely in the center, clearly the source for the campaign’s gear.

Pidge immediately charged in, unphased by the absolute den of horrors they’d just stumbled into. They went over to the television section and began shouting for Lance, holding up various  _ Doctor Who _ gear.

“Really?” Keith asked, looking at the wide variety of TARDIS mugs, planners, and scarves. “Didn’t this show end, like, twenty years ago?”

Lance turned to him, horrified. “Keith, the  _ old _ version ended then. They’ve rebooted it since with new doctors and companions and aliens and you’re telling me you’ve never seen it?”

He felt his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. “I never wanted to reach that level of nerd. That’s what people dress up as for Comic Con and shit. It’s a little much for me.”

Lance rolled his eyes dramatically, waving a turquoise-nailed hand at him. “You’re playing D&D, honey bunches. We’ll introduce you to it soon.”

He held up a fez, raising an eyebrow at Pidge. They shook their head immediately. “Hunk hates Eleven. He’s more of a die-hard Nine stan.”

Lance groaned. “Fuck,  _ nobody _ likes Nine. What kind of fucking merch does Nine even have? A plaque of Rose?”

They held up TARDIS-shaped cookie jar. “Dude, it’s thirty bucks but I think we should totally go halfsies on it. Hunk would go ham for this shit.”

Lance agreed, somehow roping in Keith to do the same for a show he didn’t even watch. They went to the cashier to pay, a tired looking girl with an alarming amount of facial piercings, when suddenly Pidge stopped and gasped. “Lance, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

They pointed at something on the wall in reverence. Lance followed their line of sight, giving an equal reaction when he saw what they had spotted. “Holy shit. We  _ need _ that. Right now. Not just for Hunk but for us to keep on living.”

Keith looked over at the wall at a plain looking, old-fashioned yellow poster with a line of can-can dancers and a black and white photo of a group of people. It was small enough to blend in with the other old movie posters, unremarkable next to their vibrant colors. The only mildly noticeable thing was the font for the title, garish and bloody.

He was wholly unimpressed. “I don’t get it. Does Hunk like that movie?”

The two of them spun around in near unison. Lance looked like he couldn’t believe Keith could be serious. Pidge looked downright murderous. 

Pidge spoke first, Lance seemingly incapable. “Keith, are you for real?”

He looked at the poster again, then back at Pidge. “Uh, yes? Is it Hunk’s favorite or something? Did I just spit on his family?”

Lance finally unfroze, moving incredibly close to Keith’s face, gripping his shoulders tight. “You’re telling us, right here, right now, that you’re a  _ virgin _ .”

Keith wouldn’t be surprised if he disintegrated into ash on the spot. His face must have been a spectacle, at least, considering the mighty flume he felt, and he shot as far as he could from Lance’s grip. “Fucking excuse me?!”

Pidge regained a bit of consciousness, smacking Lance. “You dumbass, if he hasn’t seen the movie he won’t know what that means. Do you think with your brain or just let your mouth do all the work?”

They turned to Keith. “What Lance means to ask is, you haven’t seen  _ The Rocky Horror Picture Show, _ then?”

He tried to respond calmly, face still a million degrees above healthy. “I’ve heard of it, I think. Doesn’t it have Tim Cook in it?”

They both shrieked “Tim Curry!” in sync, causing the cashier’s elbow to slip off the counter.

Pidge took a slow, calming breath, then said, “Keith, we’re watching this movie tonight. You have no say in this. If I have to chain you down in Lance and Hunk’s room, I will.”

“Alright, fuck, don’t tie me to Lance’s bed, Jesus.” He backed away, hands up in defeat. “I’ll watch the movie, whatever.”

They both cheered and ran to the register, purchasing the cookie jar and poster from the rather pale cashier. Keith left a rather hefty tip in the jar apologetically while the others sprinted out, whooping along the way. They continued doing such the entire walk back to campus, startling drivers as they chanted what Keith assumed were song lyrics.

Rather than returning to Santos Hall they made a beeline for Montgomery, dragging a very frightened Keith in tow. The people in the common room, a different crowd than Keith had seen before, gave him varying degrees of pity and confusion.

Lance sprinted in front of the others up the stairs, taking them two at a time on his way to Room 610. Keith was gasping by the time he caught up. He and Pidge began hammering on the door loudly, attracting more than a few irritated glances from passing students, until finally it opened. 

A very confused, very sleepy-looking Hunk greeted them. “Guys? Is something wrong? I just fell asleep after class--”

“Hunk!” Lance shouted, running into the room and grasping Hunk’s face in his hands. “Hunk, Keith is a virgin!”

Hunk looked even more confused than before. “Uh, good for you? Did I really need to know that?”

Pidge cursed under their breath. “No, he means in the  _ Rocky Horror _ sense. We don’t know if he’s a sex virgin yet.”

“I’m still definitely standing here, guys.” Keith jutted in, exasperated and once again bright pink. “Also,  _ yet _ ?!”

Hunk’s eyes widened. “Oh.  _ Oh _ . No wonder you two look like someone got shot. Tonight?”

Pidge and Lance nodded solemnly. Hunk fetched his computer, pulling up an old file from the trenches, proclaiming triumphantly that it was still there. Pidge began texting their brother, Allura, and Shiro in mad succession to see who would be available for a showing tonight.

Lance, on the other hand, began tearing through his and Hunk’s dresser. Shirts, pants, a skirt, and an ungodly amount of underwear sailed past him, landing either on Keith or the floor in haphazard piles. What Lance could possibly be doing was beyond him.

Standing up with a roar, his question was quickly answered. Lance held up an enormous clear plastic bag victoriously, the contents barely visible but immediately out of Keith’s comfort zone. There were more than enough sequins to bedazzle a rhinoceros and what looked suspiciously like multiple pairs of fishnet stockings.

Pidge grimaced and looked up from their phone. “It’s just gonna be us tonight. The others are responsible and have ‘class’ tomorrow morning or whatever.”

They brightened instantly, however, at the bag, charging over and beginning to dig through with a squeal of delight. 

Lance muttered to himself while removing a few of the sequined garments before eventually tossing a few to Keith. He caught them absently, then immediately regret touching them with a ten foot pole.

Shorts. To be exact,  _ tiny _ shorts. They had probably been made for a high school cheerleader at one point, elastic and coated with a thick layer of black, shimmery sequins. They barely covered Keith’s palm.

Beyond that, a pair of fishnet stockings with a fucking garter belt attached, holes worn in what had to be the knees. A teeny black mesh crop top with more lace than a Victoria’s Secret strung up in the middle like a corset. A set of elbow length black fingerless gloves.

Worst of all, a string of enormous costume pearls.

He dropped it all with a mortifying squeak. “Lance, what did you just fucking give me?”

Lance bubbled over with excited laughter. “Keith, the best part of watching this movie is the prep to watch this movie. That’s your costume!”

He tentatively picked up the shorts again. “Absolutely fucking not.”

Pidge gave him an uncharacteristically adorable pout, offset by the extremely loud gold glitter top hat perched on their head. “Keith, you have to wear a costume. We can give you Brad if you don’t want to be Tim Curry.”

Lance reluctantly took back the garrish accessories, trading them out for a conservative white button-down and brown slacks. “You can be Brad for now, but next time you’re at least Magenta.”

He may as well have been speaking German for all Keith absorbed. At least he didn’t have to wear what looked, horrifically, like a solid gold speedo. The fit was a little loose, but eons more comfortable than any of the drag in Lance’s bag of nightmares could have been.

Hunk grinned over at him, halfway into a ratty black suit. “Aw, Keith. This is gonna be the best birthday ever.”

Pidge smacked a hand to their forehead. “Fuck! We were so caught up in Keith’s virginity we totally forgot to give you your gifts. Happy birthday, you big lummox.”

They handed over the plastic shopping bag from the comic book store. Hunk looked absolutely delighted despite the lack of fancy wrapping paper (or any at all, for that matter). He immediately set the cookie jar up on a high shelf with a mug full of fancy pens and other knick knacks. The poster went squarely in the center of the wall, under Ariana and next to Carly Rae.

The night continued eventfully. Lance refused to let anyone see him in costume until they actually started the movie, insisting on wearing an outrageous pink fluffy bathrobe around the room over his fishnets. Pidge disappeared sometime around six before reappearing half an hour later with a bag full of French fries, burgers, and rectangular slices of cake from the dining hall, producing a pack of candles from a hidden pocket in their sweatshirt. They toasted the night to Hunk, completing the meal with a round of Lance’s infamous beer stash (with a Dr. Pepper for Hunk, of course).

After that the night took a turn for the interesting. Around eight or so, Lance switched all the lights off in the room to a string of fairy lights Keith had failed to previously notice hanging around the edge of the ceiling.

“To verify,” he declared loudly, “you three don’t have classes tomorrow, yes?”

Pidge and Hunk nodded gravely. Keith looked at both of them before mumbling, “uh, I actually have physics tomorrow morning at--”

“Then you shall skip!” Lance interrupted him dramatically. “Tonight we celebrate the victorious ceremony of Tsuyoshi Garrett, aged twenty years on this day in this year of our lord. He has valiantly reached a milestone worthy of a thousand suns, and to that, we drink!”

“Here, here!” Pidge shouted, making Keith nearly jump out of his skin.

Hunk, meanwhile, was blushing deep red. “Aw, you guys, this is so totally unnecessary of you all.”

Lance shook his head, already pouring vodka into three cactus-shaped shot glasses, switching to soda for the fourth. “By all accounts, you’re a man now! We drink!”

“Here, here!” Pidge repeated.

Lance gave each of them a glass before holding his own in the air. “To the first of many years! May you live long and prosper!”

With that he knocked back the drink in one go. Pidge and Hunk followed suit, Keith joining in if only to forget the Star Trek quote. The acrid drink burned a steady lick of heat down his throat, begging him to cough and sputter. The only thing that kept him from embarrassing himself was sheer stubbornness. He wasn’t going to drink like a shrinking violet.

Lance immediately began pouring more, shouting about twenty drinks for twenty years until Pidge tackled him down. “We’re not repeating Tequila Tuesday this early on in the night, you dipshit.”

He stood up and straightened out his robe, nodding crisply. “You make a valid point, small one. Just one more to get this party going.”

They rolled their eyes and conceded, handing Lance the bottle again. “Fine.  _ One _ more. Then we wait at least half an hour. I’m not cleaning up after your sloppy ass again.”

The drinks were poured and drunk just as fast, no toast from Lance this time. Keith could already feel his mind fuzzing slightly at the edges, room warmer than it had been. He was glad Pidge had an iron fist over their over-eager friend; he’d rather not pass out on a Wednesday when he still had full intentions of going to class tomorrow morning.

“Alright, alright,” Hunk laughed at his drunk friends. “You’re all pink already. It’s adorable.”

Lance stuck out his bottom lip. “Hunk, I’m a glorious queen. I’m not  _ adorable,  _ you knave.”

“Yeah, okay.” He shifted past Lance, sitting on the bottom bunk and opening his computer back to the grainy-looking torrent file. “You guys ready to watch a masterpiece?”

Pidge gave out another cheer, slamming down on the bed next to Hunk. “Let’s get this show on the fucking road.”

Lance held up both hands, effectively hushing the two of them. “We have yet to unleash the main event.”

In one swift motion, he opened and dropped the fluffy pink robe.

Keith felt himself go through about sixty emotions at once, his booze-tinged mind settling on one word: hot. Lance was  _ hot _ .

They’d all been able to see the fishnets under the robe all day, but now Keith got to enjoy them in full view. Thigh-high stockings ending a touch too soon up Lance’s incredibly toned legs, suggestive holes torn into the knees either by hand or something Keith didn’t dare think of right now. Those tiny black sequin shorts, somehow even smaller than Keith had initially thought, covering a microscopic amount of skin around his hips. Lacy mesh shirt the only thing covering his chest, elbow-length fingerless gloves ripped and torn. A set of heavy pearls tight around his throat.

Keith felt his mind immediately drop to the gutter, somehow aware his face must have been seven shades of violent red at once. He distantly heard Pidge wolf whistle, them and Hunk clapping for Lance’s dramaticies. 

“Dude,” Pidge said, punching Keith in the arm and effectively bringing him back to the present. “I think you broke Keith.”

His face burned even hotter than before. 

Lance just laughed, striking a few poses around the room for the three of them before pulling Pidge up off the bed to dance. Keith hadn’t even noticed him turning on any music. He reached instead for the vodka, pouring himself a hefty shot. Lord knew he would need it before the end of the night.

Hunk put a warm hand on his shoulder. “Hey, is this too much? I know these two can be a lot sometimes. Lance really goes all out for this movie.”

Keith wiped his mouth, throat tingling. “I just wasn’t expecting this when I woke up, I suppose. It’s cute, though. How much they love it.”

Pidge and Lance were still dancing, a new song playing, as Hunk chuckled. “Yeah, it’s sweet. Lance and I found it in my senior year of high school, his junior, and I swear it changed his life. You should have seen him at his first live performance; it was like a kid on Christmas. Pidge was just a lucky gamble when we met them a couple months ago. We casually brought it up and they went bananas.”

It was easy to see. The two of them were erratically swing dancing, Lance clearly already drunk and Pidge clearly still sober but loving every second. He kept picking them up while dancing some seriously impressive moves.

The song eventually died out. Lance collapsed, panting, right in between Hunk and Keith as Pidge did the same on Hunk’s other side. Keith swore he could feel the heat from Lance’s thigh against his to the tips of his fingers, the rough texture of his stockings scratching Keith’s smooth slacks.

“Lance, there were so many  _ other _ places you could sit on this bed.” Hunk grumbled, a smile escaping despite his best intentions. “You had to sit on me and Keith?”

He laughed, bubbly with excitement and alcohol, wiggling closer to Hunk like an overeager puppy. “I wanted a front seat to the movie!”

Keith genuinely thought he might pass out. Maybe Hunk was right--this was a lot more than he bargained for. Lance and Pidge had way more energy than he had ever seen.

Hunk shoved him off lightly, snorting a laugh as he started the movie. Immediately the three of them began thrumming with electricity, singing along effortlessly to the opening scene. Keith just stared in amazement, unsure if he should focus on the jarring set of lips on screen or the three loveable goofs next to him.

It all started normally after the lips had gone. Pidge accented every “damn it” with a low pitched, unenthusiastic “Janet,” Hunk excitedly pointed out Easter eggs, and Lance finally settled down into thrilled silence.

From there it was another musical number, certainly less strange than the first but unsettlingly macabre nonetheless, a trip up to the “Frankenstein place” out of the rain, and an impressive dance number by not only Pidge and Lance but an exuberant Hunk as well. Keith fought back his near constant flush at the ridiculousness of it all, not nearly drunk enough to join in on the time warp but wishing he was.

They all collapsed back on the bed, laughing breathlessly as the actors on screen fell to the ground. Keith could see why Lance suggested he dress as Brad--he was just as confused, if not more.

Suddenly he noticed Pidge and Hunk holding their breaths, eyeing each other with barely-suppressed grins. Lance perked immediately up, realizing just what scene they were at.

And there he was: Tim Curry himself. Keith barely recognized him under the heavy drag makeup and blush-worthy costume, eons racier than Lance’s, but that grin was unmistakable.

Unmistakable because Lance was currently giving him the same wolfish look.

He sprang up into the center of the floor, popping a hip and thrusting his chest overzealously with each hit of the beat. When the words began so did he, skipping out on singing himself but lip-syncing in perfect harmony. Keith could hardly keep his eyes on the computer screen.

Lance either had a whole dance choreographed to this song or was fantastically good at making one up on the spot. He pranced around the room with unparalleled energy, waving his hands and moving his lips with exaggerated perfection.

Pidge gave another two fingered whistle as he continued to strut like a showpony, chiming in for the desperate pleas of Brad while Hunk said “right!” in a high-pitched Janet impersonation. It was unlike anything Keith had ever seen, and he was secretly loving every second of it.

The song eventually had to end, whether they wanted it to or not. Keith moved over in preparation for Lance flopping back down onto the bed, clearly unconcerned with anyone who could or would be in the way. He was practically vibrating with excitement.

The rest of the movie only escalated after that. Lance didn’t do quite that extent of dance again, though he and Pidge did dramatically sing along to “Touch-a-Touch” from either side of the bed. Hunk gave an impressive rendition of “Hot Patootie” while Pidge mimed an erratic saxophone solo.

Every so often, much to Keith’s content, Lance would glance over at him as though checking he was still enjoying himself. It brought back those warm and fuzzy feelings of friendship he had felt blossom and bloom that night before. Despite his outrageous costume he would check in on Keith with an almost painfully soft smile, lightening his already bright blue eyes into something intangible. He would try to return the same expression, sure it couldn’t be as delicately warm as the ones he was receiving.

Eventually the film wound down to a close, ending on a surprisingly dour note considering the levity for the first hour. Keith was unsure how to interpret it, focused instead on the lightly snoring, thoroughly unconscious Lance slumbering peacefully against his shoulder. He had passed out a few minutes from the end, nodding off into the loose folds of the too-large button down. Keith hadn’t noticed at the time, too caught up in the movie, but now could hardly focus on anything else.

Some way, somehow, Lance looked fucking adorable. He breathed out little puffs onto Keith’s chest, eyelashes fluttering slightly.

He heard Hunk huff a laugh through his nose and looked over to see him gesture down to a similarly conked Pidge. It seemed the excitement of the night had finally caught up with the two of them.

The coziness could not last, however. Hunk gently nudged Pidge awake, whispering something about them probably wanting to sleep in their own bed. They stretched and yawned, looking over at Keith with a sleepy motion towards the door, a silent “let’s go.”

He looked helplessly down at his own deadweight. There was no way he was going to disturb Lance right now. It would be like moving a sleeping kitten.

As though to answer his problem, Hunk quietly stood and gently picked Lance up like he weighed three pounds. Lance stirred, mumbling something about a gorilla in a trenchcoat before burrowing his face into Hunk’s chest to continue sleeping. 

Hunk sighed. “I really shouldn’t let him fall asleep in spandex again, should I.”

Pidge shrugged, still not truly awake. “It’s his fault for insisting on wearing them. Let him deal with it in the morning. I’m going to bed.”

Hunk quietly put Lance up on the top bunk, tucking the messy blanket up over him and arranging a few of the shark plushies just so before putting out a clean pair of boxers on the bunk ladder.

“Fuck,” Pidge cursed quietly. “He’s lucky his college roommate doubles as his mom. Why don’t you do this shit for me, Keith?”

Keith rolled his eyes, smiling despite himself. “Come on, Pidge. Let’s go to bed.”

They shoved him affectionately, piling into a burrito of layers before waving goodbye to Hunk. Keith followed closely after, thanking Hunk for a nice night while slipping on his own jacket.

The walk back to Santos was pleasant, the mid-January air biting at his cheeks refreshingly after the sheer warmth of Room 610. He breathed it in deeply, making sure Pidge was still shuffling along beside him every so often. They had a tendency to veer off the path, dozing off mid stride. Keith almost wished he could hoist them up on his back and just carry them back to the room.

Room 184 greeted them, bland door and all, warmer than it had been in the morning. Keith paused a moment before getting into bed, checking to make sure Pidge themself changed out of their sequined outfit into something comfortable before bed. They noticed and flipped him off halfheartedly, pulling on sweatpants before passing out in a heap.

He smiled quietly, moving aside  _ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency _ for another night. For now he crawled under the covers and shut off the light, staunchly ignoring the fluttering in his stomach in favor of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aw keith thats not how friends think of each other :)  
> but yeah--a rocky horror picture show chapter.  
> i was introduced to the movie in my freshman year of college by two die hard fans and let me tell you most of the events here actually happened. there's nothing quite like watching this movie for the first time and seeing your new friend do a fucking drag routine to "Sweet Transvestite." at my first live show i was the kid on christmas.  
> i promise therell be more dungeons and memes next chapter. i wanted to celebrate my favorite boys birthday while i still could.   
> the cashier was defo the girl from the space mall coran harasses.  
> ALSO: the tomato theory from chapter 1! A while ago when I was a young freshly hatched dm without a fucking clue of what i was doing, one of my players told me this great way of remembering what all the stats mean with something he called "the tomato theory." i guess a better name would be tomato analogy, but what am i, a writer?  
> Strength: how easily you can crush a tomato  
> Dexterity: how easily you can dodge a tomato being thrown at you  
> Constitution: how well you survive eating a rotten tomato  
> Intelligence: knowing tomato is a fruit  
> Wisdom: not putting a tomato in a smoothie even though it's a fruit  
> Charisma: selling a smoothie made with tomatoes  
> its the only way i explain stats to new players now and high key the only way i remember the difference between wisdom and intelligence even tho ive been playing for like three years now shhhh  
> okay, thats all she wrote. pester me to keep up w my 5000 a day over @toastyzuko on tumblr or teach me the bare bones basics of posting on this website (ill figure out endnotes eventually)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith makes some assumptions. Everyone is gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay on updates ;A; I was writing 5000 words a day for a while but was turning out some wildly awful shit that wouldn't be worth jack. This one finally came out after a few days toil (plus an impromptu vacation to see my family) and is a lil longer because i feel guilty. Enjoy~~~  
> (mild tw for mentioned weed. i dont think i even actually call it weed i just say someone was high at one point idk its legal here so bite me)

Certain things about spending this much time with people were starting to catch up with Keith. 

At first it had been small things. His bonding moment with Hunk, for one, learning about his past year at culinary school. Or watching Pidge and Lance bare their souls (and quite a bit of leg) to the world while dancing to Rocky Horror. 

But now he was starting to notice more.

Even outside his closer friend group, the whole group that met each Saturday for another round of Dungeons and Dragons were inexplicably growing on him. He began to sense when Matt would sneak up behind him and Pidge in the library before Pidge even could, laughing with him when they would jump six inches in the air. He found out Allura was an international student from Capetown who had only heard of their tiny university because her uncle taught there. Even Shiro, his own brother whom he hadn’t felt close with in years, was starting to open up a little easier around him again.

It was more than that, though.

Pidge’s affectionate glances when they thought he wasn’t paying attention, or how they were so god awful messy yet managed to know exactly where anything was at any given moment in their dorm. How hard Hunk was on himself when he made mistakes, yet soft and kind to others when they did the same. Lance…

Lance. 

There were things about Lance he couldn’t figure out. 

One of them was how he managed to get away with hitting on  _ every fucking girl  _ on campus without getting slapped more often than he did. Keith had seen him use increasingly cringe-worthy pick up lines at the beginning of classes or when they would pick up coffee together for everyone to study with. He knew what these women were subjected to.

And yet, 95% of the time, they gave a giggle or a smile in return. Only a couple times had Keith seen a girl actually slap Lance, and they were times even Lance had to admit he deserved it. 

Another was just what his angle was. Again, Keith had seen him drop more lines than a cheap Saturday morning sitcom, and yet he never seemed to go further than that. When a girl would actually flirt back he would continue the banter for a bit, maybe score a phone number, but then ultimately leave it at that. Keith didn’t think he’d ever actually heard of Lance going on any dates, or of even hooking up with anyone. 

Hunk begged to differ. He regaled Keith with tales of “First Semester Lance,” as he called him. This Lance, fresh to college and living on his own for the first time, took any and every opportunity given to hook up with girls.

Keith had been incredulous, but Hunk had just laughed at his expression before ticking off names on his fingers. “Well sure, there was Nyma, these sorority sisters Florona and Plaxum, Allura’s cousin Romelle--”

“Lance hooked up with Allura’s cousin?!”

“Ha, yeah. Romelle’s this tiny, sweet little thing too. I thought Allura was going to run him through with a broadsword.”

In short, Lance had clearly been a player. And yet there had been an obvious change, because the Lance Keith saw only flirted long enough for a conversation before going back to whatever he had been doing before.

Maybe he had gotten it all out of his system in the first few months. Hunk regaled him with the story of the sorority sisters, both of whom Lance made out with at a party with neither of them knowing about the other. Apparently the entire Beta Kappa house refused to talk to him for a week.

Or maybe it was something else.

Something that was pressing  _ very _ pertinently on Keith’s mind.

He first noticed the shy glances, warm fuzziness completely open on the boy’s face. Then the subtle touches, the way he always reached for a hand while walking home from class or stretched his legs just so while playing D&D to fall into a lap.

Little details began to pile up: the memorized coffee order, the gentle reminders to not stay up all night studying, the subtle blush when he thought nobody was looking.

The evidence was simply irrefutable: Lance and Hunk were dating.

How had he not noticed it before? Keith guessed he had always assumed Lance was painfully straight, what with his dumbass behavior around the opposite gender. And yet he and Hunk were downright  _ tender _ with each other. For Christ’s sake, Hunk packed Lance a different snack every day for their astronomy lecture.

When he realized it, he could no longer ignore it. Every second spent around the two of them was unbearable with PDA, whether it was Lance complaining loudly about the walk to class until Hunk hoisted him up piggyback style or Hunk swooping Lance into a bone-crunching hug after being separated for two hours in different labs. 

It was all a bit much, for Keith’s tastes.

“You’re scowling,” Pidge said, snapping him out of his thoughts. They weren’t even looking at him, instead intently focused on whatever homework they had brought to the library that day.

“I’m not,” Keith protested. “This is just my face.”

“I mean, I won’t argue on that front.” They smirked, clicking dully on the screen before looking up. “However today you’re even  _ more _ scowly than usual. What’s your problem?”

He had been staring over at Lance and Hunk squashed into one armchair while sharing a textbook. “Nothing’s my problem,” he responded bitterly.

They followed his line of sight, despite his best efforts to look away at anything less distracting. “Ah, so that’s your problem.”

He said nothing.

Pidge snorted. “Yeah, those two are fucking gross. I don’t know how Hunk deals with all of Lance’s clinginess. I’d have gone batshit if I were him.”

Keith stewed in his seat. “I kind of want to tell them to get a room.”

They barked a laugh. “The worst thing is they  _ have _ a room. I always tell them to go back to 610 if they want to cuddle. I don’t need my corneas burned out 24/7.”

Across the library Hunk began to turn a page before Lance swatted his hand out of the way, pouting about one thing or another Keith couldn’t hear.

“I mean,” Pidge said, “I guess if you know somebody that long you’re bound to be this annoying, right? And these two chucklefucks have been close forever. It was bound to happen in public eventually.”

Keith grimaced, staring blankly at his notes. He had been highlighting the same portion over and over, and the ink was becoming illegibly mixed together. “Pidge, promise me that if we ever know each other as long as they have we won’t be that fucking unbearable.”

They turned back to their work, rolling their eyes. “Keith, promise me that if we ever act like that in public you immediately shoot me dead without hesitation.” They held a finger gun to their forehead and pulled the trigger for emphasis.

“If we act like that I’m gonna shoot myself first.”

  
  
  


It only got worse on Saturday night.

Keith and Pidge had arrived early again, not nearly as early as a few weeks ago but before the rest of the crowd got there. They claimed it was because they wanted first dibs on the cookies, but he knew Pidge loved these nights even more than him. Besides, when they left earlier in the day the February air wasn’t quite as bitterly cold. 

When they climbed the stairs up to the sixth floor, Keith could already hear loud music crashing down the hall. It sounded vaguely like terrible brass, then a soft female voice crescendoing into an incredibly upbeat tune. In other words, exactly Lance’s kind of music.

The music just got louder the closer they got to 610, a very upbeat Lance joining in on the words behind the door.

Pidge slammed on the door hard enough to nearly break the hinges, crashing their whole body into the thin wood. Keith had the strong impression that, had they actually wanted to, they really could break the door down. He wasn’t necessarily surprised.

They repeated the action a few more times until the door finally opened to a panting, visibly sweaty Hunk. A brief look of surprise jolted through him at the two of them standing there.

Keith felt a surge of irritation course through him. They weren’t  _ that _ early, after all. They had been earlier in the past and never walked in on anything like this.

Inside Lance was lying on the bottom bunk, equally breathless and sweaty as Hunk, laughing with his hands twisted in the handmade quilt. The song had blended into another, this one synthy with a good beat, the same girl singing about her emotions.

Lance was, much to Keith’s horror, very shirtless. 

The sharp planes of his chest rose and fell with each breath, erratic and hypnotic. He was more toned than Keith expected but not grotesquely so, his smooth stomach lined delicately with muscle. His stomach dipped softly into the curve of his navel, a line of barely visible hair creeping into the waistband of low slung, teeny tiny red athletic shorts. Keith only paused for a moment on what had to be either women’s or runner’s shorts, feeling his face heat at his friend’s semi nudity. 

Lance scrambled up when the two of them walked in, throwing them a devilish grin. He seemed perfectly comfortable with his state of undress, though the light dusting of pink behind his freckles betrayed ulterior feelings.

Pidge was significantly unhappier with the turn of events. They picked up a sweat stained grey t-shirt off the floor, throwing it at Lance with a wrinkled nose. “Lance, do you mind putting on some fucking clothing when you have company?”

He smirked. “Well, Pidgeotto, I don’t make habit of walking in on you, do I?”

Keith felt the flush soaking his face thrum steadily. So they  _ had _ been--

Hunk cut off his thoughts. “Dude you make it sound so much worse than it actually was.” He turned to Keith. “We were working out.”

Pidge snorted. “So that’s what the kids are calling it nowadays?”

“No,” Hunk buried his face in his hands. “No, Pidge. We were actually working out. Lance won’t do his reps without someone forcing him into it.”

Now that he thought about it, the room did look more like people had been exercising than anything else. There were two yoga mats rolled out on the floor Keith had missed in his moment of panic, along with a few small brightly colored weights and a printed sheet of push ups, sit ups, and the like.

Lance groaned, rolling off Hunk’s bed and onto one of the mats. “Ugh, fine. Coach has been chewing me out for ignoring all this dry land bullshit.” He stood up stiffly, holding himself like a rod. “‘Lance, you’re slowing down on your butterfly. Lance, if you did a thousand push ups you’d be better at freestyle. Lance, I need you to run seventy billion miles on top of swimming seventy billion laps by Tuesday.’”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “Shut up, you pansy. Are you going to shower before tonight’s session or what?”

They held out a scraggly-looking blue towel and a shower caddy filled with too many products. 

Lance stuck out his tongue and snatched it away. “Fine. If you all don’t want to be surrounded by this sweet, sensual musk.” 

He waggled his eyebrows at Keith, who grimaced in return. “You smell like a cheap gym. Please go wash off.”

Lance sulked before grabbing Hunk’s wrist. “Fine. We’ll be back later, then. Enjoy  _ our _ room, you fuckers.”

Hunk shrugged helplessly at the two of them before following him out of the dorm towards the floor’s community bathroom.

Thoroughly disgusted, Pidge flopped down on Hunk’s bed, pulling out their phone to tap away idly. Keith shifted awkwardly for a moment before sitting down on the floor and scanning his character sheet, making sure he had leveled up properly. 

The process was simple enough, but he couldn’t help but think he’d fucked it up somehow anyway. Matt had explained how to use the Player’s Handbook and follow the instructions under “fighter” to see what he got for reaching level two. 

He didn’t get any more trinkets or anything like he had for creating his character initially, just more health and fighting moves. He still wasn’t clear on  _ why _ Matt had given him a trinket, anyway. The “knife belonging to a relative” didn’t have any use beyond weighing down his pack. Matt wouldn’t even let him fight with it.

Aside from that the game really had been getting good. Allura had been there the past few weeks, taking her role as space princess extremely seriously. Unfortunately she had been so busy with her classes that she hadn’t been able to be present at too many sessions for the entire time, meaning her character hadn’t really fought anything yet.

She had still worked tirelessly with Matt however to create incredibly expansive lore behind the campaign. She wove them through rich stories of her self-proclaimed past, explaining their role as “paladins.” Despite Shiro being the only one in the paladin class, all of them were referred to as paladins for the campaign, confusingly enough. Allura had waved away their complaints with a hand, chalking it up to old alien speech and translation issues.

Other than that, Matt was doing wonders with the campaign. He covered Allura’s lack of knowledge by saying her race had been killed off 10,000 years ago, and that she had been cryogenically frozen during that time. 

He had them fighting large mechanical beasts and various alien races both as their normal classes and as the “defenders of the universe.” When they were in that form they fought as a mecha nightmare from Pidge and Hunk’s robotics team called “Voltron,” the stupidest thing Keith had ever heard of. Hunk explained he and Pidge had been high as kites when they came up with the design of five mini lion robots turning into a big beefy man-bot, but liked the idea so much they kept it when they sobered up. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Keith had grown rather partial to his red lion.

The nice thing about hanging out with Pidge, he realized vaguely after going over his character sheet for a good twenty minutes, was that they never felt the need to fill the silence with unnecessary conversation. They had been sitting together in a room that wasn’t theirs comfortably, enjoying each other’s moment of quiet instead of filling it blandly.

The quiet was, of course, broken immediately once he thought of that. The door slammed open and Lance came tumbling in, freshly pink from his shower, Hunk in close tow. They were both chattering, laughing about a joke that had happened in the bathroom.

Keith immediately felt a dark and mean snake coiling in his stomach at the sight of the two of them. Seeing them laugh like this with each other, looking at each other with such warmth, Lance’s fingers tangled with Hunk’s--

“You’re making that face again.”

How did they  _ do _ that? Pidge was, once again, not making eye contact when they called him out on his shit. It was like they had a sixth sense.

Keith’s cheeks burned and he frowned deeper. What was his fucking problem? It wasn’t like he was against his two friends dating, necessarily. They had enough chemistry for him to understand it without fault. And Pidge did say they’d been close since forever.

It especially wasn’t like he was against the two of them being dudes. His mom didn’t raise a homophobic bastard, after all. No, she had raised two gay sons. He had the opposite of a problem with it. He should have been in full support of it.

Ugh. What a fucking mess.

There was a knock at the door, and Hunk and Lance untangled their hands. Shiro, Matt, and Allura gave big hellos when they walked in, Shiro stopping to ruffle Keith’s hair before sitting down next to him on the floor. 

Matt resumed his position in the top bunk, opening up his laptop to whatever cryptic dungeon master notes he kept on there. Pidge claimed they had once snuck a peek at it but found a long list of indecipherable code. They could say what they wanted about Matt, but one thing was true: he was a demon about keeping his DM shit secret.

Lance meanwhile immediately began braiding Allura’s hair while talking to Shiro about his week. This was a normal occurrence for the three of them, as strange as it had seemed to Keith at first. It calmed Lance down, stalling his jittery nature into smoother and more tolerable motions. Maybe he just needed to keep his hands occupied all the time. 

Matt cleared his throat dramatically, raising his hands up for silence. “Alright, last week we had the Castle of Lions fall prey to the evil Galra. Pidge saved all your asses with their dope rogue tricks, Lance almost died, Hunk kidnapped an NPC to split up the party and go crystal hunting. Am I missing anything?”

“Shiro tried to take on a miniboss solo like a level one dumbass,” Pidge piped up.

Matt nodded sagely. “How could I forget? Shiro tried fighting Sendak one v. one like an absolute disaster and got his ass handed to him.”

Shiro shrugged, smiling a bit. “All for the good of the team, right? I couldn’t just leave Lance dead on the floor alone.”

Their DM once again held up a hand. “Lance isn’t dead, remember? Just because you hit zero HP doesn’t mean you’re dead--he’s just unconscious. Besides, didn’t you stabilize him with a medicine check?”

“Yeah homie,” Lance jutted in. “I wake up in 1d4 hours so…” he rolled and cursed. “Fuck me running. Why do I only roll high when I don’t  _ want _ to roll high?!”

Pidge confirmed the four to Matt. “Very well,” he said. “That means we’re at the dawn of a new day. Hunk, you’ve successfully made it to this planet, Balmera. Roll me a history check to see if you know anything about it?”

Hunk rolled his twenty sided die. “How’s a, uh, a seventeen?”

“Coran explains the planet is not a planet at all but in fact a massive petrified alien creature called ‘balmera.’ He also says the balmera produces these crazy crystal chunks that power your alien ship through magic science, and that it should be covered with these crystals. With a moment of horror you both realize the planet is  _ not _ covered in crystals but is instead gross and polluted from those Galra bitches. What’s the plan, boys?”

Hunk attempted a deception check, not critically failing but certainly rolling low enough for Matt to request he park his ship to be boarded. He panicked and steered it into the balmera, surprising everyone at the session with his uncharacteristic split-second decision. If anyone was making shitty choices last minute, it was usually Keith.

“Underneath the skin of the Balmera,” Matt began, “deep down in the chambers below, it’s an entirely different world. Here it is dark, with little light filtering down from above. Tunnels branch off in various directions, and Hunk,” he checked his computer. “Hunk, with your passive perception, you feel as though you’re being watched by something...or someone.”

They all shivered, Hunk the most. “Uh, Coran? What lives down here?”

Matt cleared his throat, adopting the terrible Australian accent he had chosen for the NPC. It had started out as a joke before he had declared everything in the game to immediately be canon. “Well, my boy--”

Matt cut himself off, a feat in and of itself. “He doesn’t have time to answer, though. Two enormous, rocky forms enter your main chamber, staring at you with glowing yellow eyes. One of them is pretty cute with big hoop earrings, the other looks kind of like a douche. They are both definitely not Galran.”

Hunk took the bait. “Alright, then. Hail and well met!”

Matt cocked his head, putting on a soft female voice. “You are not Galra! What brings you skylings down here, where only Galra walk for many years?”

Pidge huffed a laugh through their nose. They could never handle Matt’s female character voices.

Hunk ignored them, forging ahead. “We’re looking for a crystal for our spaceship. My name is Hunk,” he gestured to a blank space next to him, prompting a few laughs around him. “This is my compatriot, Coran. Can you help us out?”

“My name is Shay,” Matt said. “And this one, my brother Rax. He’s kind of a dick but I keep him around because I’m a good person with a heart of gold. Here, let us move your ship so you are not caught by Galra!”

Hunk had grown a bit pink when Matt introduced the new character, and Keith wondered who Matt could have based her off. He had a tendency to pull NPCs from their real life, making Professor Smythe from History 305 into Coran, the helpful history NPC they could ask questions about the universe, for example. He claimed it was easier to pull names from around them than come up with a bunch of bullshit fantasy names they’d forget in a hot second. Besides, it was always satisfying to fight Galra aliens named after their least favorite people and professors.

Matt detailed them hiding the pod, painting the scene of Hunk teaching Shay about freedom and the sky. It was certainly...interesting to watch Hunk stumble while Matt flirted with him shamelessly. 

Seriously, who  _ was _ this girl?

“Alright, alright, enough funny business.” Matt said, laughing despite himself. “So what’s your plan to get past all these Galra guards?”

“Uh…” Hunk looked genuinely stumped. “I guess Coran and I are gonna dress up as a Galra soldier and, uh, try to sneak past? Um, vermin sauce, or whatever?”

Matt snorted. “Vrepit sa? Yeah, okay. Roll me performance.”

That was bound to be a shaky one. Hunk was a cleric, not a bard, and his charisma wasn’t great. His performance skill was in the negatives.

The five he rolled didn’t help much.

“Verification code,” Matt said robotically.

“Fuck, uh...no need? I’m pulling rank?” He looked even less sure of himself than the roll.

“Verification code or be destroyed.”

Destroyed, evidently. Hunk tore off the disguise right into a surprise round, using his insane homebrew weapon against the sentries. The resulting fight was one of their shortest yet.

The adventure continued from there, Hunk getting kidnapped and escaping, the NPC struggling after him, the poor balmera aliens helping them out. Despite not actually being involved in the current storyline, Keith couldn’t help but be entranced with all that was going on. Everything Matt said could be an allusion, after all. He loved connecting all the bits and pieces.

At the end of his separate storyline they all took a break, Allura sprinting to the bathroom after drinking a gallon of water during the storyline, Shiro and Lance going to refill their own waters, Pidge checking their phone. 

Keith turned to Hunk. “Who’s Shay?”

Hunk colored noticeably. “What? Why? What makes you, uh, why do you ask me? She’s an alien in Matt’s campaign. I don’t know her.”

Keith stared at him, deadpan. “Are you sure?”

“Shay is Hunk’s lady friend,” Pidge called out from where they were hanging upside down on the bunk bed ladder, sing-songing.

He blushed even further. “She’s not my--! I mean, she’s a friend, of mine, and, uh, a lady, yeah, so I guess a lady friend, but not like, um.” He trailed off, growing pinker with every word.

“Yeah, okay.” Pidge cut him off. “Don’t hurt yourself, kid.”

Now Keith was really confused. He thought he had finally figured out whatever was going on between Hunk and Lance, but now Hunk had a definitely-not girlfriend? He couldn’t keep all this straight.

“So, uh, you’re...polysexual, or whatever?” He tested the word out slowly, unsure if he was using it properly.

Maybe not, seeing as Hunk nearly shot water out his nose. “What?! Where did  _ that _ come from?”

Backpedal, backpedal. “I mean, if you’re into this girl, and you already have a boyfriend--”

“I have a boyfriend?” He turned to Pidge, looking about as astonished as Keith felt. “Dude, when did I get a boyfriend? Why am I the last to know?”

They somersaulted back off the ladder, landing neatly at the base. “I mean, I know some guys who are into you, but none that are actually dating you. And don’t play Keith like that, you  _ are _ poly, you fucker.”

He held his hands up defensively. “I mean, yeah. Poly pan, baby. Enough love for everyone. I just don’t understand where Keith found me a boyfriend that I don’t know about?”

Keith had clearly fucked up. “Never mind, never mind. I just thought you and Lance were, uh…” He stopped at Hunk and Pidge’s identical expressions.

“You thought I fucking  _ what _ ?!” Hunk shrieked at an ungodly high pitch while Pidge rolled around on the floor, choking on their laughter.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. “You guys are always cuddling and shit, I don’t know! You literally showered together two hours ago!”

“Dude, we just went to the showers together, not ‘shower’ singular.” Hunk had regained a little composure, catching his breath. “We cuddle because ‘A,’ I’m the best snuggle on this goddamned campus. Ask anyone. Ask Pidge, unless you think I’m dating them, too?”

Keith looked helplessly between the two of them before Hunk continued. “‘B,’ we always cuddle because Lance is the neediest son of a bitch on the face of the earth, if not the entire galaxy and/or known universe. That’s just how Lance is.”

Well, shit. How could he have gotten this many things wrong? “So Lance is straight, then?”

Hunk and Pidge exchanged a look before the latter answered carefully. “Well,  _ he _ thinks he is. Three shots in on tequila he might say differently, but for now he defo thinks he is.”

“You don’t think he is?”

They looked at each other again before responding in unison: “Bi.”

Before he could continue to pry, the door opened with Lance, Shiro, and Allura talking amongst themselves.

“Yo, Lance,” Hunk called out. “We dating?”

Lance stepped over the room to Hunk, smooching him loudly on the cheek before saying: “Of course not. Why would anyone think such a thing?”

God, where the hell  _ was _ he. 

It wasn’t that Keith was unused to friendships, or even close friendships. He hadn’t had any of his own before, not really, but he had seen Matt and Shiro before. He and their mom had just assumed Matt was Shiro’s boyfriend for the longest time until he brought home Adam to Thanksgiving, to everyone’s surprise.

But even those two weren’t this close. Sure, they occasionally sat much closer than necessary while gaming and were completely comfortable with each other’s bodies after living together for three years, but they weren’t anything like Lance and Hunk. He just didn’t think friends did things like this, all the hand holding and cheek kissing and lovey bullshit.

He thought for a moment of having a relationship like this with the others. It seemed silly with Pidge (imaginary Pidge punched him when he went to hold their hand), and just awkward with Hunk. Sure, he may be the cuddle champion of AU, but Keith couldn’t imagine actually taking him up on the offer.

He thought then of acting like that around Lance. Kissing his cheek in greeting, holding his hand while walking to classes, napping together. It warmed his cheeks and brought back a familiar flutter to his stomach. It just seemed so affectionate.

He probably wouldn’t actually, no. But it was nice to imagine, for the time being.

Matt clapped his hands then, reminding them why they were all really there. From where they left off he guided the others through the invasion of the castle. Pidge continued to save their shit with unbelievable skill checks, single handedly taking down the miniboss Sendak’s henchman with a clever technology ruse. Shiro continued to fight against Sendak with Keith, their combined efforts nearly enough.

Nearly. Matt managed to knock Shiro out with Sendak’s crazy prosthetic hand move, taking him down to zero HP. Keith continued to battle Sendak on his own, feeling his hope beginning to slip.

Suddenly Lance perked up. “Matt, how long has it been since the invasion started?”

“Uh,” Matt paused, unsure of where Lance was going. “I’d say about four or five hours, maybe? Probably a while, considering all the shit that’s gone down.”

Lance grinned. “In that case, I’m gonna launch a surprise attack at Sendak, considering I’m now officially up and stable with a single hit point four hours after Shiro’s medicine check.”

The others whooped, and even Matt had to laugh. “Alright yeah, that’s pretty fucking good Lance. I totally forgot about that. Roll with advantage to hit.”

There was no need for the advantage, however. Lance had finally rolled a natural twenty.

The room went silent before exploding. It was the only time Lance had actually rolled above a six as far as any of them were concerned.

He began to roll damage, but Matt cut him off. “That was badass enough to warrant a killshot. Sendak is now officially knocked out, all thanks to our sharpshooter.”

Keith felt a rush of adrenaline and, in a moment of brief insanity, reached over and squeezed Lance’s hand in excitement.

Lance grinned at the hand in his own before tackling Keith in a half-hug. “We did it! We make such a great team!”

Thankfully, Hunk pulled Lance off before Keith went completely catatonic.

They called the night there, considering the hour was definitely late enough for bed. Matt congratulated them all on a job well done before grabbing Shiro to head home, Allura following them out with a yawn-riddled “good night” tossed over her shoulder.

Pidge immediately started to the GameCube, muttering to themself about whether they should play Mario Kart or Party tonight. They tossed a few controllers to Hunk and Lance before pausing briefly at Keith. “You in tonight?”

Strangely enough, he wanted to. He really wanted to. “Yeah, okay.”

They didn’t say anything to indicate this as abnormal, handing him a controller wordlessly before popping a brightly colored disk into the purple console.

“Keith’s staying?” Lance popped out from where he had been rummaging for pajamas in the closet. “No shit?”

He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant about the decision. In reality his mind was spinning a million miles an hour, panicking over whether he had made the right decision, whether they would appreciate him staying behind, whether he should have just gone home like he always did. 

Hunk interrupted his thoughts with a soft pat on the back. “We’re glad you’re staying, buddy. It’ll be satisfying to see someone else wreck Lance at double dash instead of just me and Pidge like usual.”

It was impressive what a single reassurance could do for him. He released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and sat back down on the floor to play.

“Oh no, no way, mullet-brain.” Lance hauled him up by the armpits, startling the crap out of him. “With four of here I can actually justify moving a mattress to the floor. Come on, Hunk. Let’s get this bitch down.”

He grasped a corner of the top mattress, and Hunk groaned. “Seriously, dude? I mean, I appreciate not using my mattress, but can we maybe not destroy the room? Just once?”

Despite his protests, he was already holding the other side of the mattress before Lance could even respond.

Their combined efforts (mostly Hunk) shifted the mattress onto the floor with ease. The sheets pulled back a bit, exposing the crinkly blue tarp mattress, but other than that it was nearly perfect.

Lance clearly slept in the height of comfort. The bed came down with flannel sheets, two heavy comforters, a knit blanket that looked handmade, and numerous shark plushies.

The amount of blankets appalled Keith. “Are you constantly cold?”

Lance turned up his nose in response. “I’m from Cuba, Keith. You expect me to survive this weather with a thin blanket?”

That explained his concern over Keith’s thin jacket, then. It also justified his tendency to gift people knitted clothes, such as Pidge’s squashy hat and Hunk’s thick woolen scarf. He probably just wanted people to be warmer than he always was. It was funny, though. With all his energy, Keith would have expected him to run hot blooded.

Pidge immediately set to cocooning themself in one of the heavy blankets, squishing a shark in their arms while holding the controller. “My boy and I are gonna wreck all three of you, just fucking wait.”

Hunk chuckled, setting himself up as well. “Pidge, we haven’t even seen Keith play yet. How do you know he isn’t better than us?”

They snorted. “Keith? He hadn’t heard of a GameCube before coming here.”

Two sets of wildly insulted eyes landed on him, sending him reeling back in a flash. “I’m not that bad, Jesus. I’ve played Nintendo games before.”

They stared him down until he slowly followed up with: “...just never Mario Kart.”

“ _ J’accuse, _ Keith Kogane!” Lance shrieked.

Mario Kart, it turned out, was extremely loud and flashy. The music was grating, the colors migraine-inducing and pixelated, the characters cartoonish.

It was also so clearly the three’s favorite game. Hunk and Lance immediately picked characters that were already divided in teams, comfortably familiar in the gameplay. They said gibberish about Donkey and Diddy Kong having the best underutilized item across the board, but it immediately went over Keith’s head. He didn’t even bother trying to understand.

Pidge impatiently explained that they were on a team together, and that they prefered playing as Toad, but it was ultimately up to him. Keith nodded blindly, accepting the bubbly pink character Toadette for himself.

They went on to talk about items, weight, and drifting, but it was all German to him. He figured he’d pick it up along the way.

  
  


Pick it up he did. Keith, as it turned out, had a natural knack for this particular video game. 

It wasn’t that complicated, really. The controls were simple. The items were simple. He couldn’t fuck up if he tried.

Not everyone agreed with him. Pidge was immediately thrilled with his skill, whooping whenever they crossed into first place. Lance shouted continuously that he obviously  _ had _ played this game, and was just lying to get ahead. When Keith pointed out this wouldn’t help him in the slightest he just grumbled to himself in response.

They swapped to teaming up with NPCs, and Pidge’s excitement was soon stifled. Keith was  _ still _ getting first place, even ahead of them. They were coming in second every time, still leagues ahead of both Lance and Hunk, and was clearly unused to the defeat.

When they switched back to teaming against each other, the general consensus was that it was only fair for Keith and Pidge to be on seperate teams. Since Pidge refused to team up with Lance ever since something only referred to as the “Tequila Tuesday Incident,” that meant Keith was stuck with him. He had consistently come in seventh the last few rounds, losing even to the NPCs, so Keith braced himself for the rough seas ahead. 

He was right to fear. Lance was erratic as fuck, never sticking quite to the road or to his own plans, swerving as the driver and wasting items as the passenger. Keith dragged them unceremoniously across the finish line in fifth, grimacing at his first quasi failure. The characters may have been cheering, but he felt ready to strangle Lance.

“Hey, man,” he said hotly. “What fucking gives?”

Lance stuck out his tongue. “It’s not my fault I’m stuck with fresh blood. You aren’t ready for this jelly.”

“Well it isn’t  _ my _ fault you fucking suck at this game.”

Lance pointed a finger in Keith’s chest, getting up close to his face. “Watch it, mullet! Just stay on course next time!”

Keith moved equally close. “‘Stay on course’?! Why don’t you stay on the actual,  _ literal _ racetrack?!”

Hunk suddenly wrenched Lance back with a stiff jerk. “Okay, no need to come to blows over this. Just try to have fun? Please? For us?”

He smiled adorably and Lance visibly deflated. “Fine. Come on, mullet-brain. Just follow my lead, okay?”

Keith rolled his eyes, sitting back down on the edge of the mattress where he had gingerly perched until then. 

A hand yanked him back further, and he inhaled sharply. “What the fuck?!”

Lance had pulled him close to where he was sitting and murmured close to his ear: “This way we can strategize, yeah?”

Keith said nothing, his ears burning uncomfortably at the sudden contact. He was so close he may as well be sitting in Lance’s lap.

The next round was better, though. They bumped up a few places to third, then second, before finally finishing in first a couple times in a row. Lance’s strategy hadn’t necessarily improved per se, but Keith was more prepared for it now. When they went off course he utilized mushrooms to speed them up and keep from slowing in the poor terrain, and when he wasted items Keith stopped berating him about it. He even managed to find them a few shortcuts, made possible through the golden mushroom perk of their character choice.

“You were right,” Keith said after their fourth win in a row.

“Hm?” Lance turned, distracted with gloating to a discouraged Pidge and Hunk.

“Before,” he said uncomfortably. “When we were playing Dungeons and Dragons. You said we make a good team, and you were right.”

“Oh  _ really _ ?” He grinned a 40-watt smile wider than should be possible. “My own rival saying I was correct? I never thought I’d live to see the day!”

“Rival?” That was a surprise.

“You know,” he was still smiling, as though he couldn’t even take himself seriously. “Lance and Keith? Neck and neck? Our rivalry from the campaign!”

“I didn’t even know you at the Garrison! Since when are we rivals?!”

Pidge shoved at Lance. “Oh shut up. Keith, you gonna crash here or head back to the room?”

He felt his face blank again. “Uh, the room. Are you not going back to Santos?”

“Nah, man.” They stretched out as wide as their tiny frame could. “I’d rather just stay here, you know? No need to trek through that frozen hellscape out there.”

A yawn split their face nearly in two as they shuffled off to Hunk’s bed, rubbing their eyes loosely with one long sleeved fist.

Keith supposed he must have fallen asleep quickly enough the past few Saturdays not to notice Pidge failing to return. He felt a little guilty about the oversight, if he was honest, but chose not to dwell too much on it. Pidge reminded him frequently that they were self sufficient, and that he shouldn’t really worry about them.

He looked over at Lance, who was beginning to slather a thick cream on his face, and thought for a moment. The room didn’t have more than two beds, obviously. Pidge and Hunk were so close they probably didn’t think twice about sharing the tiny twin, even with Hunk’s bulky frame. He could sleep on the floor, possibly, but was that really worth it when his own bed was a twenty minute walk away, tops? If they had a couch it would be so much easier…

A thought crept into his mind against his own volition, glancing over at Lance once more. If the others were fine with it, and Lance really was as clingy as Hunk claimed, then could he…? 

No. His friends might be that close, but he had barely known them a month. Even he and Shiro weren’t that close. Sure, they’d share a bed while traveling to cut down on costs, but they weren’t casual cuddlers.

“I think I should go home.” He donned his jacket, shaking his head a bit at the silly thoughts. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Lance frowned at him. “Aw, dunk. One day we’ll get you to stay for real, Keith. Hunk sometimes makes muffins in the morning that are out of this goddamn world.”

Muffins  _ were _ enticing. So was that pile of soft blankets and sharks, smelling vaguely of salt and chlorine.

But no, no he had to go. He tore his eyes away from the mattress on the floor and gave Lance a small smile. “Maybe next Saturday. I’ll bring a sleeping bag.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, laughing softly. “Alright, Bear Grylls. You can always have my bed, you know. I’m chill sleeping on the floor.”

He couldn’t do that to Lance when he lived so stupidly close anyway. This boy was so kind sometimes it caught him off guard. How could such an irritating douche be so sweet?

Keith waved goodbye to the crew, Pidge already unconscious in Hunk’s bed. Hunk gave him a cheerful wave, whispering a “good night” as he left. Lance gave him one last painfully gentle smile as he left,the kind that made him unsure if he was meant to see it.

The smile followed him all the way home, lingering long after he left Montgomery and into the blustery 2am air. Somewhere, deep in Keith’s brain, a seed of the unknown planted itself in his brain, nurtured by that long look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all are seriously the b e s t. Over 60 kudos??? On my fic????? its more likely than youd think (there are the memes seeing as none of the characters actually say any)  
> i got some stress going down rn but i promise im not abandoning this fic any time soon. i have good plans for her in the future and am thinking of actually getting like a plot or some shit going ??? plot would be wild.  
> yell at me @toastyzuko  
> yell at my beta @toastyzuko  
> yell at my cats @toastyzuko
> 
> ALSO yes lance is listening to the emotion album in this chapter im weak for carly secretly


End file.
